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SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 










































WALTER SCOTT’S LIBRARY AT ABBOTSFORD 




































SHORT STORIES AND 
SELECTIONS 


FOR USE IN THE SECONDARY SCHOOLS 


COMPILED AND ANNOTATED, WITH QUESTIONS 
FOR STUDY 


EMILIE KIP BAKER 

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Nefo gorfc 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1916 


All rights reserved 


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COPYBIGHT, 1916, 

By THE MACxMILLAN COMPANY. 


Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1916. 



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DEC -I 1916 


Norfoocb ^reaa 

J. S. Cashing Co. —Berwick & Smith Co. 
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 


PAGE 

A Leaf in the Storm, by Louise de la Ham 6e, from A 

Leaf in the Storm and Other Stories . . . . l 

Cats, by Maurice Hewlett, from Earthwork out of Tuscany 6 

An Adventure, by Honors de Balzac, from A Passion in 

the Desert. 13 

For Those Who Love Music, by Axel Munthe, from 

Vagaries.26 

Out of Doors, by Richard Jefferies, from Saint Guido . 33 

The Taboo, by Herman Melville, from Typee ... 38 

School Days at the Convent, by" George Sand, from 

The Story of My Life (adapted) . . . .41 

In Brittany, by Louisa Alcott, from Aunt Jo’s Scrap Bag 50 

The Adirondacks, by John Burroughs, from Wake Robin 66 

An Ascent of Kilauea, by Lady Brassey, from Around 

the World in the Yacht Sunbeam .... 59 

The Fetish, by George Eliot, from The Mill on the Floss 63 

Salmon Fishing in Ireland, by James A. Froude, from 

A Fortnight in Kerry.65 

Across Running Water, by Fiona Macleod, from Sea 

Magic and Running Water.71 


v 


VI 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


PAGE 

The Pine-Tree Shillings, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, 

from Grandfather’s Chair.75 

The White Trail, by Stewart Edward White, from The 

Silent Places.80 

A Dissertation on Roast Pig, by Charles Lamb, from 

Essays of Elia.83 

The Last Class, by Alphonse Daudet, from Monday 

Tales. 88 

An Arab Fisherman, by Albert Edwards, from The Bar¬ 
bary Coast..94 

The Archery Contest, by Walter Scott, from Ivanhoe . 100 

Baby Sylvester, by Bret Harte, from Bret Harte’s Writ¬ 
ings .106 

The Address at Gettysburg, by Abraham Lincoln, from 

Lincoln’s Speeches ..109 

The Second Inaugural Address, by Abraham Lincoln, 

from Lincoln’s Speeches. 110 

An Appreciation of Lincoln, by John Hay, from Life 

of Lincoln. 113 

The Elephants that Struck, by Samuel White Baker, 

from Eight Years in Ceylon. 115 

The Luck of Roaring Camp, by Bret Harte . . . 119 

The Story of Muhammad Din, by Rudyard Kipling, from 

Plain Tales from the Hills.126 

A Child, by John Galsworthy, from Commentary . . 131 

Too Dear for the Whistle, by Benjamin Franklin, 

from The Autobiography. 130 




TABLE OF CONTENTS vii 

PAGE 

A Lodging for the Night, by Robert Louis Stevenson, 

from The New Arabian Nights.138 

A Bad Five Minutes in the Alps, by Leslie Stephen, 

from Freethinking and Plainspeaking (adapted) . 144 

The Gold Trail, by Stewart Edward White, from Gold 148 

Twenty Years of Arctic Struggle, by J. Kennedy 
McLean, from Heroes of the Farthest North and 
South (adapted). .153 

The Speech in Manchester, by Henry Ward Beecher, 

from Addresses and Sermons.158 

A Green Donkey Driver, by Robert Louis Stevenson, 

from Travels with a Donkey.163 

A Night in the Pines, by Robert Louis Stevenson, from 

Travels with a Donkey.170 

Life in Old New York, by Washington Irving, from 

Knickerbocker’s History of New York . . .173 

The Bazaar in Morocco, by Pierre Loti, from Into 

Morocco. 177 

A Battle of the Ants, by Henry D. Thoreau, from 

Walden (adapted).181 

An African Pet, by Paul B. du Chaillu, from The Afri¬ 
can Forest and Jungle.184 

Animal Intelligence, by Lloyd Morgan, from Animal 

Sketches (adapted).190 

Buck’s Trial of Strength, by Jack London, from The 

Call of the Wild.194 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 


viii 


On the Solander Whaling Ground, by Frank Bullen, 

from Idylls of the Sea.198 

An Ejpisode of the French Revolution, by Charles 

Dickens, from A Tale of Two Cities .... 201 

The Commander of the Faithful, by Pierre Loti, from 

Into Morocco (adapted).205 

Walt Whitman, by John Burroughs, from Whitman — 

A Study (adapted).208 

Heroism in Housekeeping, by Jane Welsh Carlyle, from 

Letters ..211 

A Youthful Actor, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, from The 

Story of a Bad Boy.214 

War, by Thomas Carlyle, from Sartor Resartus . . 216 

Coon-Hunting, by Ernest Ingersoll, from Wild Neighbors 

(adapted).218 

Sight in Savages, by W. H. Hudson, from Idle Days in 

Patagonia.221 

The Village Schoolmaster, by Washington Irving, 

from The Sketch Book.226 



INTRODUCTION 


The testimony of librarians as to the kind of books 
people are reading nowadays is somewhat discouraging to 
the book-lover who has been brought up in the old tradi¬ 
tions. We are told that Scott and Thackeray and George 
Eliot cannot compete with the year’s “ best sellers,” and 
that the old classics are read only by the few who have a 
cultivated taste and a trained intelligence. 

The interest of novelty, the dislike of mental effort, the 
temptation to read merely for a mild sensation, — all these 
undoubtedly tend to keep down the level of literary taste. 
To many readers of good average ability, neither the esthetic 
nor the purely intellectual makes a strong appeal. Even 
minds of fine quality often find a welcome diversion in 
trivial reading. In fact, to expect every one and at all times 
to have his mind keyed up to the higher levels is neither 
sincere nor reasonable. And yet, making due allowance for 
intellectual limitations, for the busy and distracting condi¬ 
tions of modern life, and for the real need of light reading 
at times when recreation is of more value than instruction, 
it would seem that a fair proportion of our reading could 
and should be on a higher plane. 

To put it on this high plane is one of the fixed objects of 
the school. For this end the schools have given English an 
important place, have broadened the list of recommended 
books year by year, and have sought to improve the method 
of teaching literature. Especially have they hoped to create 

ix 


X 


INTRODUCTION 


in the pupil the habit of reading good books and of discov¬ 
ering new material on his own initiative. Thus far their 
success has fallen much below their hopes, as the testimony 
of librarians, adduced above, plainly indicates. 

There is one significant fact which both librarians and 
teachers have observed. The average reader, child or adult, 
seldom knows how or where to find things to read. He is 
lost in a library, whether among the book-shelves or at a 
card-catalogue. He is like a traveler who is ignorant of the 
geography of the country and cannot use the compass. And 
worse still, he has not the explorer’s instinct. If he pos¬ 
sessed this, he would somehow find his way himself,—a 
thing which occasionally happens when the reader has more 
than usual ability. Between the covers of those books, 
turning to him their uncommunicative backs, behind those 
labels — to him so unexpressive — there may be passages, 
whole chapters or more, that would give him entertainment, 
if he only knew ! 

To introduce him to an author may be to give him a new 
friend. Introductions need not imply long and intimate 
companionship. This author may hold him for half an 
hour, and never again ; that one may claim his attention for 
a day; and another may come to rank as one of his old 
friends. In each case the acquaintance may depend upon 
the fact of an introduction, and not upon the reader’s own 
initiative in discovery. More than the acquaintances thus 
made, is the sense of at-homeness among books which they 
gradually bring about. We all know that feeling of the 
unreality of a book of which we have merely heard the title, 
and how soon we forget it. A book that we have seen and 
handled, however, and especially one which we have read or 
from which we have seen a passage quoted in another vol¬ 
ume, is somehow real, — an entity. Through continued 
experiences of this sort we come to feel really acquainted 


INTRODUCTION 


xi 


with books, to know where to find the things we are looking 
for, to judge and appreciate, — in brief, to feel at home 
among them. 

It is as a series of such introductions to the larger world 
of literature that this volume has been compiled. Some of 
the selections are from books whose titles are already familiar 
to high school students; many others are from sources that 
few pupils will know. All of them, it is confidently be¬ 
lieved, are within the interest and comprehension of boys 
and girls of high school age. The notes and questions at 
the end of each selection'will, it is hoped, be of some help 
to the students in getting at the author’s meaning, and in 
suggesting interesting topics for discussion. If, after finish¬ 
ing the Short Stories and Selections, a few more students 
will have formed the habit of good reading and will feel, 
not merely willing, but eager, to enlarge their acquaintance 
among good books, this volume has accomplished its purpose. 


EMIL1E K. BAKER. 





























































































































































SHOE! STOEIES AND SELECTIONS 


A LEAF IN THE STORM 

Bernadou clung to his home with a dogged devotion. 
He would not go from it to fight unless compelled, but for 
it he would have fought like a lion. His love for his 
country was only an indefinite shadowy existence that 
was not clear to him; he could not save a land that he had 5 
never seen, a capital that was only to him as an empty 
name; nor could he comprehend the danger that his 
nation ran; nor could he desire to go forth and spend his 
lifeblood in defence of things unknown to him. He was 
only a peasant, and he could not read nor greatly under- 10 
stand. But affection for his birthplace was a passion with 
him, — mute indeed, but deep-seated as an oak. For his 
birthplace he would have struggled as a man can struggle 
only when supreme love as well as duty nerves his arm. 
Neither he nor Reine Allix could see that a man’s duty 15 
might lie from home, but in that home both were alike 
ready to dare anything and to suffer everything. It was 
a narrow form of patriotism, yet it had nobleness, endur¬ 
ance, and patience in it; in song it has been oftentimes 
deified as heroism, but in modern warfare it is punished as 20 
the blackest crime. 

So Bernadou tarried in his cottage till he should be called, 
b 1 


2 


SHORT STORIES AND'SELECTIONS 


keeping watch by night over the safety of his village and by 
day doing all he could to aid the deserted wives and mothers 
of the place by tilling their ground for them and by 
tending such poor cattle as were left in their desolate 
.5 fields. He and Margot and Reine Allix, between them, fed 
many mouths that would otherwise have been closed in 
death by famine, and denied themselves all except the 
barest and most meagre subsistence, that they might give 
away the little they possessed, 
io And all this while the war went on, but seemed far from 
them, so seldom did any tidings of it pierce the seclusion in 
which they dwelt. By and by, as the autumn went on, 
they learned a little more. Fugitives coming to the smithy 
for a horse’s shoe; women fleeing to their old village 
15 homes from their light, gay life in the city; mandates from 
the government of defence sent to every hamlet in the 
country; stray news-sheets brought in by carriers or 
hawkers and hucksters, — all these by degrees told them of 
the peril of their country, — vaguely, indeed, and seldom 
20 truthfully, but so that by mutilated rumors they came at 
last to know the awful facts of the fate of Sedan, the fall of 
the Empire, the siege of Paris. It did not alter their daily 
lives: it was still too far off and too impalpable. But a 
foreboding, a dread, an unspeakable woe settled down on 
25 them. Already their lands and cattle had been harassed 
to yield provision for the army and large towns; already 
their best horses had been taken for the siege-trains and 
the forage-wagons; already their ploughshares were per¬ 
force idle, and their children cried because of the scarcity 
30 of nourishment; already the iron of war had entered into 
their souls. 

The little street at evening was mournful and very silent: 


A LEAF IN THE STORM 


3 


the few who talked spoke in whispers, lest a spy should hear 
them, and the young ones had no strength to play: they 
wanted food. 

Bernadou, now that all means of defence was gone from 
him, and the only thing left to him to deal with was his own 5 
life, had become quiet and silent and passionless, as was his 
habit. He would have fought like a mastiff for his home, 
but this they had forbidden him to do, and he was passive 
and without hope. He closed his door, and sat down with 
his hand in that of Reine Affix and his arm around his wife. 10 
“ There is nothing to do but wait,” he said sadly. The day 
seemed very long in coming. 

The firing (which had come nearer each day) ceased for 
a while; then its roll commenced afresh, and grew stiff 
nearer to the village. Then again all was stiff. * 15 

At noon a shepherd staggered into the place, pale, bleed¬ 
ing, bruised, covered with mire. The Prussians, he told 
them, had forced him to be their guide, had knotted him 
tight to a trooper’s saddle, and had dragged him with 
them until he was half dead with fatigue and pain. At 20 
night he had broken from them and had fled: they were 
close at hand, he said, and-had burned the town from end 
to end because a man had fired at them from a house-top. 
That was all he knew. Bernadou, who had gone out to 
hear his news, returned into the house and sat down and 25 
hid his face \yithin his hands. 

It grew dark. The autumn day died. The sullen clouds 
dropped scattered rain. The red leaves were blown in 
millions by the wind. The little houses on either side the 
road were dark, for the dwellers in them dared not show any 30 
light that might be a star to allure to them the footsteps of 
their foes. Bernadou sat with his arms on the table, and 


4 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


his head resting on them. Margot nursed her son : Reine 
Allix prayed. 

Suddenly in the street without there was the sound of 
many feet of horses and of men, the shouting of angry 
5 voices, the splashing of quick steps in the watery ways, 
the screams of women, the flash of steel through the gloom. 
Bernadou sprang to his feet, his face pale, his blue eyes 
dark as night. “They are come!” he said under his 
breath. It was not fear that he felt, nor horror: it was 
io rather a passion of love for his birthplace and his nation, — 
a passion of longing to struggle and to die for both. And 
he had no weapon! 

He drew his house-door open with a steady hand, and 
stood on his own threshold and faced these, his enemies. 
15 The street was full of them, — some mounted, some on 
foot: crowds of them swarmed in the woods on the roads. 
They had settled on the village as vultures on a dead 
lamb’s body. It was a little, lowly place: it might well 
have been left in peace. It had had no more share in the 
20 war than a child still unborn, but it came in the victor’s 
way, and his mailed heel crushed it as he passed. They 
had heard that arms were hidden and francs-tireurs shel¬ 
tered there, and they had swooped down on it and held it 
hard and fast. Some were told off to search the chapel; 
25 some to ransack the dwellings; some to sei£e such food 
and bring such cattle as there might be left; some to seek 
out the devious paths that crossed and recrossed the field; 
and yet there still remained in the little street hundreds of 
armed men, force enough to awe a citadel or storm a 
30 breach. 

The people did not attempt to resist. They stood pas¬ 
sive, dry-eyed in misery, looking on whilst the little treas- 


A LEAF IN THE STORM 


i> 


ures of their household lives were swept away forever, and 
ignorant what fate by fire or iron might be their portion 
ere the night was done. They saw the corn that was their 
winter store to save their offspring from famine poured 
out like ditch-water. They saw oats and wheat flung 5 
down to be trodden into a slough of mud and filth. They 
saw the walnut presses in their kitchens broken open, 
and their old heirlooms of silver, centuries old, borne away 
as booty. They saw the oak cupboard in their wives’ 
bedchambers ransacked, and the homespun linen and 10 
the quaint bits of plate that had formed their nuptial 
dowers cast aside in derision or trampled into a battered 
heap. They saw the pet lamb of their infants, the silver 
earrings of their brides, the brave tankards they had 
drunk their marriage wine in, the tame bird that flew to is 
their whistle, all seized for food or spoil. They saw all this, 
and had to stand by with mute tongues and passive hands, 
test any glance of wrath or gesture of revenge should 
bring the leaden bullets in their children’s throats or the 
yellow flame amidst their homesteads. Greater agony 20 
the world cannot hold. 

— Louise de la Ramee (Ouida). 


CATS 


There was once a man in Italy — so the story runs — 
who said that animals were sacred because God had made 

them. People didn’t believe him for a long time; they 
came, you see, of a race which had found it amusing to kill 

5 such things, and killed a great many of them too, until it 
struck them one fine day that killing men was better sport 
still, and watching men kill each other the best sport of 
all because it was the least trouble. Animals said they, 
why, how can they be sacred; things that you call beef 
io and mutton when they have left off being oxen and sheep, 
and sell for so much a pound? They scoffed at this mad 
neighbour, looked at each other waggishly and shrugged 
their shoulders as he passed along the street. Well! 

then, all of a sudden, as you may say, one morning he 
is walked into the town — Gubbio it was — with a wolf 

pacing at his heels — a certain wolf which had been the 
terror of the country-side and eaten I don’t know how many 
children and goats. He walked up the main street till he 
got to the open Piazza in front of the great church. And 
20 the long grey wolf padded beside him with a limp tongue 
lolling out between the ragged palings which stood him for 
teeth. In the middle of the Piazza was a fountain, and 
above the fountain a tall stone crucifix. Our friend 
mounted the steps of the cross in the alert way he had 
25 (like a little bird, the story says) and the wolf, after lapping 
apologetically in the basin, followed him up three steps at 

6 


GATS 


( 


a time. Then with one arfn around the shaft to steady 
himself, he made a fine sermon to the neighbours crowding 
in the Square, and the wolf stood with his fore-paws on the 
edge of the fountain and helped him. The sermon was all 
about wolves (naturally) and the best way of treating them. 5 
I fancy the people came to agree with it in time; anyhow 
when the man died they made a saint of him and built 
three churches, one over another, to contain his body. 
And I believe it is entirely his fault that there are a hun- 
dred-and-three cats in t]ie convent-garden of San Lorenzo 10 
in Florence. For what are you to do ? Animals are sacred, 
says Saint Francis. Animals are sacred, but cats have 
kittens; and so it comes about that the people who agree 
with Saint Francis have to suffer for the people who don’t. 

The Canons of San Lorenzo agree with Saint Francis, 15 
and it seems to me that they must suffer a good deal. The 
convent is large; it has a great mildewed cloister with a 
covered-in walk all around it built on arches. In the 
middle is a green garth 0 with cypresses and yews dotted 
about; and when you look up you see the blue sky cut 20 
square, and the hot tiles of a huge dome staring up into it. 
Round the cloister walk are discreet brown doors, and by 
the side of each door a brass plate tells you the name and 
titles of the Canon who lives behind it. It is on the 
principle of Dean’s yard at Westminster; only here there 25 
are more Canons — and more cats. 

The Canons live under the cloister; the cats live on the 
green garth, and sometimes die there. I did not see much 
of the Canons; but the cats seemed to me very sad — de¬ 
pressed, nostalgic even, might describe them, if there had 30 
not been something more languid, something faded and 
spiritless about their habit. It was not that they quar- 


8 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


relied. I heard none of those long-drawn wails, gloomy 
yet mellow soliloquies, with which our cats usher in the 
crescent moon or hymn her when she swims at the full: 
there lacked even that comely resignation we may see on 
5 any sunny window-ledge at home; — the rounded back and 
neatly ordered tail, the immaculate fore-paws peering se¬ 
dately below the snowy chest, the squeezed-up eyes which 
so resolutely shut off a bleak and (so to say) unenlightened 
world. That is pensiveness, sedate chastened melancholy; 
io but it is soothing, it speaks a philosophy, and a certain bal¬ 
ancing of pleasures and pains. In San Lorenzo cloister, when 
I looked in one hot noon seeking a refuge from the glare 
and white dust of the city, I was conscious of a something 
sinister that forbade such an even existence for the smooth- 
15 est tempered cat. There were too many of them for com¬ 
panionship and perhaps too few for the humour of the 
thing to strike. them: in and out the chilly shades they 
stalked gloomily, hither and thither like lank and unquiet 
ghosts of starved cats. They were of all colours — gay 
20 orange-tawny, tortoise shell with the becoming white patch 
over one eye, delicate tints of grey and fawn and lavender, 
brindle, glossy sable; and yet the gloom and dampness of 
the place seemed to mildew them all so that their bright¬ 
ness was glaring and their softest gradations took on a 
25 shade as of rusty mourning. No cat could be expected to 
do herself justice. 

To and fro they paced, balancing sometimes with hysteri¬ 
cal precision 0 on the ledge of the parapet, passing each 
other at whisker’s length, but cutting each other dead. 0 
30 Not a cat had a look or a sniff for his fellow; not a cat so 
much as guessed at another’s existence. Am ong those 
hundred-and-three restless Spirits there was not a cat that 


CATS 


9 


did not affect to believe that a hundred-and-two were away! 

It was horrible, the inhumanity of it. Here were these 
shreds and waifs, these “unnecessary litters ,, of Florentine 
households, herded together in the only asylum (short of 
the Arno°) open to them, driven in like dead leaves ins 
November, flitting dismally round and round for a span, 
and watching each other die without a mew or a lick! 
Saint Francis was not the wise man I had thought him.° 

It was about two o’clock in the afternoon. I had 
watched these beasts at their feverish exercises for nearly io 
an hour before I perceived that they were gradually hem¬ 
ming me in. They seemed to be forming up, in ranks, on 
the garth. Only a ditch separated us — I was in the 
cloister-walk, a hundred-and-three gaunt, expectant, 
desperate cats facing me. Their famished pale eyes 15 
pierced me through and through; and two-hundred-and- 
two hungry eyes (four cats supported life on one apiece) 
is more than I can stand, though I am a married man with 
a family. These brutes thought I was going to feed them! 

I was preparing weakly for flight when I heard steps in the 20 
gateway; a woman came in with a black bag. She must 
be going to deposit a cat on Jean-Jacques° ingenious plan 
of avoiding domestic trouble; it was surely impossible she 
wanted to borrow one! Neither: she came confidently 
in, beaming on our mad fellowship with a pleasant smile 25 
of preparation. The cats knew .her better than I did. 
Their suspense was really shocking to witness. While 
she was rolling her sleeves up and tying on her apron — 
she was poor, evidently, but very neat and wholesome 
in her black dress and the decent cap which crowned her 3Q 
hair — while she unpacked the contents of the bag — two 
newspaper parcels full of rather distressing viands, scissors, 


10 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


and a pair of gloves which had done duty more than once, — 
while all these preparations were soberly fulfilling, the 
agitation of the hundred-and-three was desperate indeed. 
The air grew thick, it quivered with the lashing of tails; 
s hoarse mews echoed along the stone walls, paws were 
raised and let fall with the rhythmical patter of raindrops. 
A furtive beast played the thief: he was one of the one- 
eyed fraternity, red with mange. Somehow he slipped in 
between us; we discovered him crouched by the newspaper 
io raking over the contents. This was no time for ceremony; 
he got a prompt cuff over the head and slunk away shiver¬ 
ing and shaking his ears. And then the distribution began. 
Now, your cat, at the best of times, is squeamish about his 
food; he stands no tricks. He is a slow eater, though he 
15 can secure his dinner with the best of us. A vicious snatch, 
like a snake, and he has it. Then he spreads himself out 
to dispose of the prey — feet tucked well in, head low, tail 
laid close along, eyes shut fast. That is how a cat of 
breeding loves to dine. Alas! many a day of intolerable 
20 prowling, many a black vigil, had taken the polish off the 
hundred-and-three. As a matter of fact they behaved 
abominably; they leaped at the scraps, they clawed at 
them in the air, they bolted them whole with staring eyes 
and portentous gulpings, they growled all the while with 
25 the smothered ferocity of thunder in the hills. No waiting 
of turns, no licking of lips and moustaches to get the lin¬ 
gering flavors, no dalliance. They were as restless and sus¬ 
picious here as everywhere; their feast was the horrid hasty 
orgy of ghouls in a church-yard. 

30 But an even distribution was made: I don’t think any 
one got more than his share. Of course there were under¬ 
hand attempts in plenty and, at least once, open violence — 


CATS 


11 


a sudden rush from opposite sides, a growling and spitting 
like sparks from a smithy; and then, with ears laid flat, 
two ill-favoured beasts clawed blindly at each other, and a 
sly and tigerish brindle made away with the morsel. My 
woman took the thing very coolly I thought, served them 5 
all alike, and didn’t resent (as I should have done) the un¬ 
fortunate want of delicacy there was about these vagrants. 

A cat that takes your food and growls at you for the favor, 
a cat that would eat you if he dared, is a pretty revelation. 
Ca donne furieusement a penser° It gives you a suspicion 10 
of just how far the polish we most of us smirk over will go. 
My cats at San Lorenzo knew some few moments of peace 
between two and three in the afternoon. That would have 
been the time to get up a testimonial to the kind soul who 
fed them. Try them at five and they would ignore you. 15 
But try them next morning! 

My knowledge of the Italian tongue, in those days, was 
severely limited to the necessaries of existence; to try me 
on a fancy subject, like cats, was to strike me dumb. But 
at this stage of our intercourse (hitherto confined to smiles 20 
and eye-service) it became so evident my companion had 
something to say that I must perforce take my hat off and 
stand attentive. She pointed to the middle of the garth, 
and there, under the boughs of a shrub, I saw the hun- 
dred-and-fourth cat, sorriest of them all. It was a new- 25 
comer she told me, and shy. Shy it certainly was, poor 
wretch; it glowered upon me from under the branches 
like a bad conscience. Shyness could not hide hunger —• 

I never saw hungrier eyes than hers — but it could hold it 
in check: the silkiest speech could not tempt her out, and 30 
when we threw pieces she only winced! What was to be 
done next was my work. Plain duty called me to scale 


12 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


the ditch with some of those dripping, slippery, nameless 
cates 0 in my fingers and to approach the stranger where she 
lurked bodeful under her tree. My passage toward her 
lay over the rank vegetation of the garth, in whose coarse 
herbage here and there I stumbled upon a limp white form 
stretched out — a waif the less in the world! I don’t say 
it was a happy passage for me: it was made to the visible 
consternation of her I wished to befriend. Her piteous 
yellow eyes searched mine for sympathy; she wanted to 
io tell me something and I wouldn’t understand! As I neared 
her she shivered and mewed twice. Then she limped 
painfully off — poor soul, she had but three feet! — to 
another tree, leaving behind her, unwillingly enough, a 
much-licked dead kitten. That was what she wanted to 
15 tell, then. As I was there, I deposited the garbage by the 
side of the little corpse, knowing she would resume her 
watch, and retired. My friend who had put up her 
parcels was prepared to go. She thanked me with a smile 
as she went out, looking carefully round lest she had missed 
20 out some other night-birds. 

One of the Canons had come out of his door and was lean¬ 
ing against the lintel, thoughtfully rubbing his chin. He 
was a spare dry man who seemed to have measured life 
and found it childish business. He jerked his head toward 
25 the gateway as he glanced at me. “That is a good woman,” 
he said in French, “ she lendeth unto the Lord. . . . Yes,” 
he went on, nodding his head slowly backwards and for¬ 
wards, “lends Him something every day.” The cats were 
sitting in the shady cloister-garth licking their whiskers: 
30 one was actually cleaning his paw. I went out into the sun 
thinking of Saint Francis and his wolf. 

— Maurice Hewlett. 


AN ADVENTURE 


During" the expedition to Upper Egypt under General 
Desaix, a Provengal 0 soldier, who had fallen into the 
clutches of the Maugrabins, was marched by these mar¬ 
auders, these tireless Arabs, into the deserts lying beyond 
the cataracts of the Nile. 5 

So as to put a sufficient distance between themselves and 
the French army, to insure their greater safety, the Mau¬ 
grabins 0 made forced marches and rested only during the 
night. They then encamped around a well shaded by 
palm-trees, under which they had previously concealed io 
a store of provisions. Never dreaming that their pris¬ 
oner would think of escaping, they satisfied themselves by 
merely tying his hands, then lay down to sleep, after having 
regaled themselves with a few dates and given provender 
to their horses. is 

When the courageous Provengal noted that they slept 
soundly and could no longer watch his movements, he made 
use of his teeth to steal a scimitar, 0 steadied the blade 
between his knees, cut through the thongs which bound his 
hands; in an instant he was free. He at once seized a 20 
carbine and a long dirk,° then took the precaution of pro¬ 
viding himself with a stock of dried dates, a small bag of 
oats, some powder and bullets, and hung a scimitar around 
his waist, mounted one of the horses and spurred on in the 
direction in which he supposed the French army to be. 25 
So impatient was he to see a bivouac 0 again that he pressed 
13 


14 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


on the already tired courser at such a speed that its flanks 
were lacerated with the spurs, and soon the poor animal, 
utterly exhausted, fell dead, leaving the Frenchman alone 
in the midst of the desert. 

S After walking for a long time in the sand, with all the 
courage and firmness of an escaped convict, the soldier 
was obliged to stop, as the day had already come to an end. 
Despite the beauty of an Oriental night, with its exquisite 
sky, he felt that he could not, though he fain would, con- 
iotinue on his weary way. Fortunately he had come to a 
small eminence, on the summit of which grew a few palm- 
trees whose verdure shot into the air and could be seen from 
afar; this had brought hope and consolation to his heart. 

(Here follows a description of the cave which the soldier finds 
15 in the rocks.) 

His fatigue was so great that he threw himself down on a 
block of granite, capriciously fashioned 0 by nature into the 
semblance of a camp-bed, and, without taking any pre¬ 
caution for defense, was soon fast in sleep. In the middle 
20 of the night his sleep was disturbed by an extraordinary 
sound. He sat up; the profound silence that reigned 
around enabled him to distinguish the alternating rhythm 
of a respiration whose savage energy it was impossible could 
be that of a human being. 

25 A terrible terror, increased yet more by the silence, the 
darkness, his racing fancy, froze his heart within him. He 
felt his hair rise on end, as his eyes, dilated to their utmost, 
perceived through the gloom two faint amber lights. At 
first he attributed these lights to the delusion of his vision, 
30 but presently the vivid brilliance of the night aided him to 
gradually distinguish the objects around him in the cave, 


AN ADVENTURE 


15 


when he saw, within the space of two feet of him, a huge 
animal lying at rest. Was it a lion? Was it a tiger? 
Was it a crocodile? 

The Provencal was not sufficiently well educated to know 
under what sub-species his enemy should be classed; his 5 
fear was but the greater because his ignorance led him to 
imagine every terror at once. He endured most cruel tor¬ 
tures as he noted every variation of the breathing which 
was so near him; he dared not make the slightiest move¬ 
ment. 10 

An odor, pungent like that of a fox, but more penetrat¬ 
ing as it were, more profound, filled the cavern. When the 
Provencal became sensible of this, his terror reached the 
climax, for now he could no longer doubt the proximity of a 
terrible companion, whose royal lair° he had utilized as a 15 
bivouac. 

Presently the reflection of the moon as it slowly de¬ 
scended to the horizon, lighted up the den, rendering gradu¬ 
ally visible the gleaming, resplendent, and spotted skin of 
a panther. " 20 

This lion of Egypt lay asleep curled up like a great dog, 
the peaceful possessor of a kennel at the door of some sump¬ 
tuous hotel; its eyes opened for a moment, then closed 
again; its face was turned towards the Frenchman. A 
thousand confused thoughts passed through the mind 25 
of the tiger’s prisoner. Should he, as he at first thought 
of doing, kill it with a shot from his carbine ? But he saw 
plainly that there was not room enough in which to take 
proper aim; the muzzle would have extended beyond the 
animal — the bullet would miss the mark. And what if 30 
it were to wake! — this fear kept him motionless and 
rigid. 


16 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


He heard the pulsing of his heart beating in the so dread 
silence and he cursed the too violent pulsations which his 
surging blood brought on, lest they should awaken from 
sleep the dreadful creature; that slumber which gave him 
5 time to think and plan over his escape. 

Twice did he place his hand upon his scimitar, intending 
to cut off his enemy’s head; but the difficulty of severing 
the close haired skin caused him to renounce this daring 
attempt. To miss was certain death. He preferred the 
io chance of a fair fight, and made up his mind to await the 
daylight. The dawn did not give him long to wait. It 
came. 

He could now examine the panther at his ease; its 
muzzle was smeared with blood. 

15 “It’s had a good dinner,” he said, without troubling 
himself to speculate whether the feast might have been 
of human flesh or not. “It won’t be hungry when it 
wakes.” 

It was a female. The fur on her thighs was glistening 
20 white. Many small spots like velvet formed beautiful 
bracelets round her paws; her sinuous tail was also white, 
ending in black rings. The back of her dress was yellow, 
like unburnished gold, very lissome 0 , and soft, and had the 
characteristic blotches in the shape of pretty rosettes, 
25 which distinguish the panther from every other species 
felis°. 

This formidable hostess lay tranquilly snoring in an 
attitude as graceful and easy as that of a cat on the 
cushion of an ottoman. Her bloody paws, nervous and 
30 well armed, were stretched out before her head, which 
rested on the back of them, while from her muzzle radiated 
her straight, slender whiskers, like threads of silver. 


AN ADVENTURE 


17 


If he had seen her lying thus, imprisoned in a cage, the 
Provengal would doubtlesS have admired the grace of the 
creature and the vivid contrasts of color which gave her 
robe an imperial splendour; but just then his sight was 
jaundiced 0 by sinister forebodings. 5 

The presence of the panther, even asleep, had the same 
effect upon him as the magnetic eyes of a snake are said 
to have on the nightingale. 

The soldier’s courage oozed away in the presence of this 
silent danger, though he was a man who gathered courage io 
at the mouth of a cannon belching forth shot and shell. 
And yet a bold thought brought daylight to his soul and 
sealed up the source from whence issued the cold sweat 
which gathered on his brow. Like men driven to bay, 
who defy death and offer their bodies to the smiter, so he, 15 
seeing in this merely a tragic episode, resolved to play his 
part with honor to the last. 

“The day before yesterday,” said he, “the Arabs might 
have killed me.” 

So considering himself as already dead, he waited 20 
bravely, but with anxious curiosity, the awakening of his 
enemy. 

When the sun appeared the panther suddenly opened 
her eyes; then she stretched out her paws with energy, 
as if to get rid of cramp. Presently she yawned and 25 
showed the frightful armament of her teeth, and the pointed 
tongue rough as a rasp. 

“She is dainty as a woman,” thought the Frenchman, 
seeing her rolling and turning herself about so softly and 
coquettishly. She licked off the blood from her paws and 30 
muzzle, and scratched her head with reiterated grace of 
movement. 

c 


18 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


“Good, make your little toilet,” said the Frenchman to 
himself; he recovered his gayety with his courage. “We 
are presently about to give each other good-morning,” and 
he felt for the short poniard that he had abstracted from 
s the Maugrabins. At this instant the panther turned her 
head toward him and gazed fixedly at him, without other¬ 
wise moving. 

The rigidity of her metallic eyes and their insupportable 
lustre made him shudder. The beast approached him; 
xo he looked at her caressingly, staring into those bright eyes 
in an effort to magnetize her — to soothe her. He let her 
come quite close to him before stirring; then with a gentle 
movement, he passed his hand over her whole body, from 
the head to the tail, scratching the flexible vertebrae 0 , 
15 which divided the yellow back of the panther. The ani¬ 
mal slightly moved her tail voluptuously, and her eyes 
grew soft and gentle; and when for the third time the 
Frenchman had accomplished this interested flattery, she 
gave vent to those purrings like as cats express their pleas- 
20 ure; but it issued from a throat so deep, so powerful, that it 
resounded through the cave like the last chords of an organ 
rolling along the vaulted roof of a church. The Provencal 
seeing the value of his caresses, redoubled them until they 
completely soothed and lulled this imperious creature. 

25 When he felt assured that he had extinguished the 
ferocity of his capricious companion, whose hunger had 
so luckily been appeased the day before, he got up to leave 
the grotto. The panther let him go out, but when he 
reached the summit of the little knoll she sprang up and 
30 bounded after him with the lightness of a sparrow hopping 
from twig to twig on a tree, and rubbed against his legs, 
arching her back after the manner of a domestic cat. Then 


AN ADVENTURE 


19 


regarding her guest with eyes whose glare had somewhat 
softened, she gave vent to that wild cry which naturalists 
compare to the grating of a saw. 

“Madame is exacting,” said the Frenchman, smiling. 

He was bold enough to play with her ears; he stroked s 
her body and scratched her head good and hard with his 
nails. He was encouraged with his success, and tickled 
her skull with the point of his dagger, watching for an 
opportune moment to kill her, but the hardness of the 
bone made him tremble, dreading failure. io 

The sultana of the desert 0 showed herself gracious to her 
slave; she lifted her head, stretched out her neck, and be¬ 
trayed her delight by the tranquillity of her relaxed atti¬ 
tude. It suddenly occurred to the soldier that, to slay 
this savage princess with one blow, he must stab deep in 15 
the throat. 

He raised the blade, when the panther, satisfied, no 
doubt, threw herself gracefully at his feet and glanced up at 
him with a look in which, despite her natural ferocity, a glim¬ 
mer of goodwill was apparent. The poor Provengal, thus 20 
frustrated for the nonce 0 , ate his dates as he leaned against 
one of the palm-trees, casting an interrogating glance from 
time to time across the desert in quest of some deliverer, 
and on his terrible companion, watching the chance of her 
uncertain clemency. 25 

The panther looked at the place where the date-stones 
fell ; and each time he threw one, she examined the French¬ 
man with an eye of commercial distrust 0 . However, the 
examination seemed to be favorable to him, for, when he 
had eaten his frugal meal, she licked his boots with her 30 
powerful, rough tongue, cleaning off the dust, which was 
caked in the wrinkles, in a marvellous manner. 


20 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


“Ah! but how when she is really hungry?” thought the 
Provencal. In spite of the shudder caused by this thought, 
his attention was curiously drawn to the symmetrical pro¬ 
portions of the animal, which was certainly one of the most 
5 splendid specimens of its race. He began to measure them 
with his eye. She was three feet in height at the shoulders 
and four feet in length, not counting her tail; this power¬ 
ful weapon was nearly three feet long, and rounded like a 
cudgel. The head, large as that of a lioness, was dis- 
io tinguished by an intelligent, crafty expression. The cold 
cruelty of the tiger dominated, and yet it bore a vague re¬ 
semblance to the face of a woman 0 . Indeed, the counte¬ 
nance of this solitary queen had something of the gayety 
of a Nero° in his cups; her thirst for blood was slaked, 
is now she wished for amusement. 

The soldier tried if he might walk up and down, the 
panther left him freedom, contenting herself with following 
him with her eyes, less like a faithful dog watching his 
master’s movements with affectionate solicitude, than a 
20 huge Angora cat uneasy and suspicious of every movement. 

When he looked around, he saw, by the spring, the car¬ 
cass of his horse; the panther had dragged the remains all 
that distance, and had eaten about two-thirds of it already. 
The sight reassured the Frenchman, it made it easy to 
25 explain the panther’s absence and the forbearance she 
had shown him while he slept. 

This first good-luck emboldened the soldier to think of 
the future. He conceived the wild idea of continuing on 
good terms with his companion and to share her home, to 
30 try every means to tame her, and endeavoring to turn her 
good graces to his account, 

With these thoughts he returned to her side, and had the 


AN ADVENTURE 


21 


unspeakable joy of seeing her wag her tail with an almost 
imperceptible motion as he approached. He sat down 
beside her, fearlessly, and they began to play together. 
He took her paws and muzzle, twisted her ears, and stroked 
her warm, delicate flanks. She allowed him to do what- 5 
ever he liked, and, when he began to stroke the fur on her 
feet, she carefully drew in her murderously savage claws, 
which were sharp and curved like a Damascus sword 0 . 

The Frenchman kept one hand on his poniard, and 
thought to watch his chance to plunge it into the belly of 10 
the too confiding animal; but he was fearful lest he might 
be strangled in her last convulsive struggles; beside this, 
he felt in his heart a sort of remorse which bade him re¬ 
spect this hitherto inoffensive creature that had done him 
no hurt. He seemed to have found a friend in the bound- is 
less desert, and, half-unconsciously, his mind reverted to 
his old sweetheart whom he had, in derision, nicknamed 
“Mignonne.” 

This recollection of his yputhful days suggested the idea 
of making the panther answer to this name, now that he 20 
began to admire with less fear her graceful swiftness, 
agility, and softness. Toward the close of the day he had 
so familiarized himself with his perilous position that he 
was half in love with his dangerous situation and its pain¬ 
fulness. At last his companion had grown so far tamed 25 
that she had caught the habit of looking up at him when¬ 
ever he called in a falsetto voice, “Mignonne.” 

From that time the desert was inhabited for him. It 
contained a being to whom he could talk and whose feroc¬ 
ity was now lulled into gentleness, although he could not 30 
explain to himself this strange friendship. Anxious as he 
was to keep awake and on guard, as it were, he gradually 


22 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


succumbed to his excessive fatigue of body and mind; 
he threw himself on the floor of the cave and slept soundly. 

On awakening Mignonne was absent; he climbed the 
hillock and afar off saw her returning in the long bounds 
5 characteristic of those animals who cannot run owing to 
the extreme flexibility of the vertebral column. 

Mignonne arrived with bloody jaws; she received the 
wonted caresses, the tribute her slave hastened to pay, 
and showed by her purring how transported she was. Her 
io eyes, full of languor, rested more kindly on the Provencal 
than on the previous day, and he addressed her as he would 
have done a domestic animal. 

“Ah! mademoiselle, you’re a nice girl, ain’t you? 
Just see now! we like to. be petted, don’t we ? Are you 
15 not ashamed of yourself ? So you’ve been eating some 
Arab or other, eh? Well, that doesn’t matter. They’re 
animals, the same as you are; but don’t take to crunching 
up a Frenchman, bear that in mind, or I shall not love you 
any longer.” 

. 20 She played like a dog with its master, allowing herself to 
be rolled over, knocked about, stroked, and the rest, alter¬ 
nately ; at times she would coax him to play by putting 
her paw upon his knee and making a pretty gesture of 
solicitation. 

25 One day, under a bright midday sun, a great bird hovered 
in the sky. The Provepgal left his panther to gaze at this 
new guest; but after pausing for a moment the deserted 
sultana uttered a deep growl. 

“God take me! I do believe that she is jealous,” lie 
30 cried, seeing the rigid look appearing again in the metallic 
eyes. “The soul of Virginie has passed into her body, 
that’s sure!” 


AN ADVENTURE 


23 


The eagle disappeared in the ether, and the soldier ad¬ 
mired her again, recalled by the panther’s evident displeas¬ 
ure, her rounded flanks, and the perfect grace of her atti¬ 
tude. There was youth and grace in her form. The 
blonde fur of her robe shaded, with delicate gradations, 5 
to the dead-white tones of her furry thighs; the vivid 
sunshine brought out in its fulness the brilliancy of this 
living gold and its variegated brown spots with indescrib¬ 
able lustre. 

The Provengal and the panther looked at each other 10 
with a look pregnant with meaning. She trembled with 
delight (the coquettish creature) when she felt her friend 
scratch the strong bones of her skull with his nails. Her 
eyes glittered like lightning-flashes — then she closed 
them tightly. is 

“She has a soul!” cried he, looking at the stillness of 
this queen of the sands, golden like them, white as their 
waving light, solitary and burning as themselves. 

(Here the narrative breaks off somewhat abruptly and continues 
in the first person — that of the soldier.) 

“Suddenly she turned on me in a fury, seizing my thigh 
with her sharp teeth, and yet (I thought of this afterwards) 20 
not cruelly. I imagined that she intended devouring me, 
and I plunged my poniard in her throat. She rolled over 
with a cry that rent my soul; she looked at me in her death- 
struggle, but without anger. I would have given the 
whole world — my cross, which I had not yet gained, all, 25 
everything — to restore her life to her. It was as if I had 
assassinated a real human being, a friend. When the sol¬ 
diers who had seen my flag came to my rescue they found 
me in tears. 


24 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


“ Ah! well, monsieur, I went through the wars in Ger¬ 
many, Spain, Russia, and France; I have marched my 
carcass well-nigh the world over, but I have seen nothing 
comparable to the desert.” 

5 —Honore de Balzac (adapted). 


FOR THOSE WHO LOVE MUSIC 


I had engaged him by the year. Twice a week he came 
and went through his whole repertoire, and lately, out of 
sympathy for me, he would play the Miserere of the Tro- 
vatore 0 , which was his show piece, twice over. He stood 
there in the middle of the street looking steadfastly up at 5 
my windows while he played, and when he had finished he 
would take off his hat with an “Addio, Signor 0 !” 

‘It is well known that the barrel-organ, like the violin, 
gets a fuller and more sympathetic tone the older it is. 
The old artist had an excellent instrument, not of the 10 
modern noisy type which imitates a whole orchestra with 
flutes and bells and beats of drums, but a melancholy old- 
fashioned barrel-organ 0 which knew how to lend a dreamy 
mystery to the gayest allegretto, 0 and in whose proudest 
tempo di Marcia 0 there sounded an unmistakable under- 15 
tone of resignation. And in the tenderer pieces of the 
repertoire, where the melody, muffled and staggering like 
a cracked old human voice, groped its way amongst the 
rusty pipes of the treble, then there was a trembling in the 
bass like suppressed sobs. Now and then the voice of the 20 
tired organ failed it completely, and then the old man 
would resignedly turn the handle during some bars of rest 
more touching in their eloquent silence than any music. 

True, the instrument was itself very expressive, but the 
old man had surely his share in the sensation of melancholy 25 
25 


26 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


which came over me whenever I heard his music. He had 
his beat in the poor quarter behind the Jardin des Plantes 0 , 
and many times during my solitary rambles up there had 
I stopped and taken my place among the scanty audience 
s of ragged street boys which surrounded him. 

It was not difficult to see that times were hard — the 
old man’s clothes were doubtful, and the pallor of poverty 
lay over his withered features, where I read the story of a 
long life of failure. ' He came from the mountains around 
io Monte Cassino 0 , so he informed me, but where the monkey 
hailed from I never quite got to know. 

Thus we met from time to time during my rambles in 
the poor quarters. Had I a moment to spare I stopped 
for a while to listen to a tune or two, as I saw that it grati- 
is hed the old man, and since I always carried a lump of sugar 
in my pocket for any dog acquaintance I might possibly 
meet, I soon made friends with the monkey also. The 
relations between the little monkey and her impressario 0 
were unusually cordial, and this notwithstanding that 
20 she had completely failed to fulfil the expectations which 
had been founded upon her — she had never been able 
to learn a single trick, the old man told me. Thus all at¬ 
tempts at education had long ago been abandoned, and she 
sat there huddled together on her barrel-organ and did 
25 nothing at all. Her face was sad, like that of most animals, 
and her thoughts were far away. But now and then she 
woke up from her dreams, and her eyes could then take a 
suspicious, almost malignant expression, as they lit upon 
some of the street boys who crowded round her tribune 0 
30 and tried to pull her tail, which stuck out from her little 
gold-laced garibaldi 0 . To me she was always very ami¬ 
able ; confidently she laid her wrinkled hand in mine and 


FOR THOSE WHO LOVE MUSIC 


27 


absently she accepted the little attentions I was able to 
offer her. She was very fond of sweetmeats, and burnt 
almonds were, in her opinion, the most delectable thing 
in the world. 

Since the old man had once recognized his musical friend 5 
on a balcony of the Hotel de L’Avenir 0 , he often came and 
played under my windows. Later on he became engaged, 
as already said, to come regularly and play twice a week, 

— it may, perhaps, appear superfluous for one who was 
studying medicine, but the old man’s terms were so small, 10 
and you know I have always been so fond of music. Be¬ 
sides it was the only recreation at hand — I was working 
to take my degree in the spring. 

So passed the autumn, and the hard times came. The 
rich tried on the new winter fashions, and the poor shiv- 15 
ered with the cold. It became more and more difficult 
for well-gloved hands to leave the warm muff or the fur- 
lined coat to take out a copper for the beggar, and more and 
more desperate became the struggle for bread amongst 
the problematical existences 0 of the street. 20 

Now and then I came across my friend, and we always 
had, as before, a kind word for one another. He was now 
wrapped up in .an old Abruzzi cloak 0 , and I noticed that the 
greater the cold became the faster did he turn the handle 
to keep himself warm; and towards December the Miserere 25 
itself was performed in allegretto. 

The monkey had now become civilian, and wrapped up 
her little thin body in a long ulster such as Englishmen 
wear; but she was fearfully cold notwithstanding, and, 
forgetful of all etiquette, more and more often she jumped 30 
from the barrel-organ and crept in under the old man’s 
cloak. 



28 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


And while they were suffering out there in the cold I 
sat at home in my cosy, warm room, and instead of help¬ 
ing them, I forgot all about them, more and more taken up 
as I was with my coming examination, with no thought but 
5 for myself. And then one day I suddenly left my lodgings 
and removed to the Hotel Dieu to take the place of a com¬ 
rade, and weeks passed before I put my foot out of the hos¬ 
pital. 

I remember it so well, it was on New Year’s Day we met 
ioeach other again. I was crossing the Place de Notre 
Dame°, mass was just over, and the people were streaming 
out of the old cathedral. As usual, a row of beggars was 
standing before the door, imploring the charity of the 
church-goers. At the farther end, and at some distance 
15 from the others, an old man stood with bent head and out¬ 
stretched hat, and with painful surprise I recognized my 
friend in his threadbare old coat without the Abruzzi 
cloak, without the barrel-organ, without the monkey. 
My first impulse was to go up to him, but an uneasy feel- 
20 ing of I do not know what held me back; I felt that I 
blushed and I did not move from my place. Every now 
and then a passer-by stopped for a moment and made as if 
to search his pockets, but I did not see a single copper fall 
into the old man’s hat. The place became gradually de- 
25 serted, and one beggar after another trotted off with his 
little earnings. At last a child came out of the church, 
led by a gentleman in mourning; the child pointed towards 
the old man, and then ran up to him and laid a silver coin 
in his hat. The old man humbly bowed his head in thanks, 
30 and even I, with my unfortunate absent-mindedness, was 
very nearly thanking the little donor also, so pleased was I. 
My friend carefully wrapped up the precious gift in an old 


FOR THOSE WHO LOVE MUSIC 


29 


pocket-handkerchief, and stooping forward, as if still carry¬ 
ing the barrel-organ on his back, he walked off. 

I happened to be quite free that morning, and thinking 
that a little walk before luncheon could do me no harm after 
the hospital air, I followed him at a short distance across 5 
the Seine 0 . Once or twice I nearly caught him up, and all 
but tapped him on the shoulder, with a “Buon giorno, Don 
Gaetanol” Yet, without exactly knowing why, I drew 
back at the last moment and let him get a few paces ahead 
of me again. 10 

We had just crossed the Place Maubert 0 and turned into 
the Boulevard St. Germain; the boulevard was full of 
people, so that, without being noticed, I could approach 
him quite close. He was standing before an elegant con¬ 
fectioners’ shop, and to my surprise he entered without 15 
hesitation. I took up my position before the shop window, 
alongside some shivering street arabs° who stood there, 
absorbed in the contemplation of the unattainable deli¬ 
cacies within, and I watched the old man carefully untie 
his pocket-handkerchief and lay the little girl’s gift upon 20 
the counter. I had hardly time to draw back before he 
came out with a red paper bag of sweets in his hand, and 
with rapid steps he started off in the direction of the 
Jardin des Plantes. 

I was very much astonished at what I had seen, and my 25 
curiositj^ made me follow him. He slackened his pace at 
one of the little slums behind Hopital de la Piti6°, and I 
saw him disappear into a dirty old house. I waited outside 
a minute or two and then I groped my wajr through the 
pitch-dark entrance, climbed up a filthy staircase, and 30 
found a door slightly ajar. An icy, dark room, in the mid¬ 
dle three ragged little children crouched together around a 



30 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


half-extinct brazier 0 , in the corner the only furniture in 
the room — a clean iron bedstead, with crucifix and 
rosary hung on the wall above it, and by the window an. 
image of the Madonna adorned with gaudy paper flowers; 

5 I was in Italy, in my poor, exiled Italy. And in the purest 
Tuscan the eldest sister informed me that Don Gaetano 
lived in the garret. I went up there and knocked, but 
got no answer, so I opened the door myself. The room was 
brightly lit by a blazing fire. With his back towards the 
io door, Don Gaetano was on his knees before the stove busy 
heating a saucepan over the fire; beside him on the floor 
lay an old mattress with the well-known Abruzzi cloak 
thrown over it, and close by, spread out on a newspaper, 
were various delicacies — an orange, walnuts, and raisins, 
15 and there also was the red paper bag. Don Gaetano 
dropped a lump of sugar into the saucepan, stirred it with 
a stick, and in a persuasive voice I heard him say, “Che 
bella roba, che bella roba, quanto e buono questa latte 
con lo zucchero! Non piange anima mia, adesso siamo 
20 pronti! ” 1 

A slight rustling was heard beneath the Abruzzi cloak 
and a black little hand was stretched out toward the red 
paper bag. 

“Primo il latte, primo il latte/’ admonished the old 
25 man. “Non importa, piglio tu una, ” 2 he repeated, and 
took a big burnt almond out of the paper bag; the little 
hand disappeared, and a crunching was heard under the 
cloak. Don Gaetano poured the warm milk in a saucer, 
and then he carefully lifted up a corner of the cloak. There 

1 “What nice things, what nice things, how good this milk with 
sugar is! Don’t cry, my darling, it is ready now! ” 

2 “The milk first, the milk first — never mind, take one.” 


FOR THOSE WHO LOVE MUSIC 


31 


lay the poor little monkey with heaving breast and eyes 
glowing with fever. Her face had become so small and 
her complexion was ashy gray. The old man took her on 
his knees, and tenderly as a mother he poured some spoon¬ 
fuls of the warm milk into her mouth. She looked with 5 
indifferent eyes towards the delicacies on the table, and 
absently she let her fingers pass through her master’s 
beard. She was so tired that she could hardly hold her 
head up, and now and then she coughed so that her thin 
little body trembled, and she pressed both her hands to 10 
her temples. Don Gaetano shook his head sadly, and 
carefully laid the little invalid back under the cloak. 

A feeble blush spread over the old man’s face as he caught 
sight of me. I told him that I happened to be passing by 
just as he was entering his house, and that I took the is 
liberty of following him upstairs in order to bid him good¬ 
morning and to give him my new address, in the hope that 
he would come and play to me as before. I involuntarily 
looked round for the barrel-organ as I spoke, and Don 
Gaetano, who understood, informed me that he no longer 20 
played the organ — he sang. I glanced at the precious 
pile of wood beside the fire-place, at the new blanket that 
hung before the window to keep out the draught, at the 
delicacies on the newspaper — and I also understood. 

The monkey had been ill three weeks — “la febbre 0 ,” 25 
explained the old man. We knelt one on each side of the 
bed, and the sick animal looked at me with her mute prayer 
for help. Her nose was hot, as it is with sick children and 
dogs, her face wrinkled like that of an old, old woman, 
and her eyes had got quite a human expression. Her 
breathing was so short, and we could hear how it rattled 30 
in her throat. The diagnosis was not difficult — she had 



32 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


consumption. Now and again she stretched out her thin 
arms as if she implored us to help her, and Don Gaetano 
thought that she did so because she wished to be bled. I 
would willingly have given in in this case, although opposed 
5 in principle to this treatment, if I had thought it possible 
that any benefit could have been derived from it; but I 
knew only too well how unlikely this was, and I tried my 
best to make Don Gaetano understand it. Unhappily I 
did not know myself what there was to be done. I had at 
iothat time a friend amongst the keepers of the monkey- 
house in the Jardin des Plantes, and the same night he came 
with me to have a look at her; he said that there was 
nothing to be done, and that there was no hope. And he 
was right. For one week more the fire blazed in Don 
is Gaetano's garret, then it was left to go out, and it became 
cold and dark as before in the old man’s home.' 

True, he got his barrel-organ out from the pawn-shop, 
and now and then a copper fell into his hat. He did not 
die of starvation, and that was about all he asked of life. 

20 The spring came and I left Paris; and God knows what 
become of Don Gaetano. 

If you happen to hear a melancholy old barrel-organ in 
the courtyard, go to the window and give a penny to the 
poor errant® musician — perhaps it is Don Gaetano! 
25 If you find that his organ disturbs you, try if you like it 
better by making him stand a little farther off, but don’t 
send him away with harshness! He has to bear so many 
hard words as it is; why should not we then be a little 
kind to him — we who love music ? 

30 —Axel Muntse (adapted). 


OUT OF DOORS 


St. Guido 0 ran out at the garden gate into a sandy lane, 
and down the lane till he came to a grassy bank. He 
caught hold of the bunches of grass and so pulled himself 
up. There was a footpath on the top which went straight 
in between fir-trees, and as he ran along they stood on each 5 
side of him like green walls. They were very near to¬ 
gether, and even at the top the space between them was 
so narrow that the sky seemed to come down, and the 
clouds to be sailing but just over them, as if they would 
catch and tear in the fir-trees. The path was so little 10 
used that it had grown green, and as he ran he knocked 
dead branches out of his way. Just as he was getting tired 
of running he reached the end of the path, and came out 
into a wheat-field. The wheat did not grow very closely, 
and the spaces were filled with azure corn-flowers. St. 15 
Guido thought he was safe away now, so he stopped to 
look. 

There were the fir-trees behind him — a thick wall of 
green — hedges on the right and left, and the wheat sloped 
down towards an ash-copse in the hollow. No one was in 20 
the field, only the fir-trees, the green hedges, the yellow, 
wheat, and the sun overhead. Guido kept quite still, be¬ 
cause he expected that in a minute the magic would begin, 
and something would speak to him. His cheeks, which 
had been flushed with running, grew less hot, but I cannot 25 
d 33 



34 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


tell you the exact color they were; for his skin was so white 
and clear, it would not tan under the sun, yet being always 
out of doors it had taken the faintest tint of golden brown 
mixed with rosiness. His blue eyes which had been wide 
5 open, as they always were when full of mischief, became 
softer, and his long eyelashes drooped over them. But as 
the magic did not begin, Guido walked on slowly into the 
wheat, which rose nearly to his head, though it was not yet 
so tall as it would be before the reapers came. He did 
xo not break any of the stalks, or bend them down and step 
on them; he passed between them, and they yielded on 
either side. The wheat-ears were pale gold, having only 
just left off their green, and they surrounded him on all 
sides as if he were, bathing. 

15 A butterfly painted a velvety red with white spots came 
floating along the surface of the corn 0 , and played round 
his cap, which was a little higher, and was so tinted by the 
sun that the butterfly was inclined to settle on it. Guido 
put up his hand to catch the butterfly, forgetting his secret 
20 in his desire to touch it. The butterfly was too quick — 
with a snap of his wings, disdainfully mocking the idea of 
catching him, away he went. Guido nearly stepped on a 
humble-bee — buzz-zz! the bee was so alarmed he actu¬ 
ally crept up Guido’s knickers to the knee, and even then 
25 knocked himself against a wheat-ear when he started to fly. 
Guido kept quite still while the humble-bee was on his 
knee, knowing that he should not be stung if he did not 
move. He knew, too, that humble-bees have stings 
though people often say they have not, and the reason peo- 
30 pie think they do not possess them is because humble- 
bees are so good-natured and never sting unless they are 
very much provoked. 


OUT OF DOORS 


35 


Another humble-bee went over along the tips of the 
wheat — burr-rr — as he passed; then a scarlet fly, and 
next a bright yellow wasp who was telling a friend flying 
behind him that he knew where there was such a capital 
piece of wood to bite up into tiny pieces and make into 5 
paper for the nest in the thatch, but his friend wanted to 
go to the house because there was a pear quite ripe there on 
the wall. Next came a moth, and after the moth a golden 
fly, and three gnats, and a mouse ran along the dry ground 
with a curious sniffing rustle close to Guido. A shrill cry 10 
came down out of the air, and looking up he saw two swifts 0 
turning circles, and as they passed each other they shrieked 
— their voices were so shrill they shrieked. They were 
only saying that in a month their little swifts in the slates 
would be able to fly. While he sat so quiet on the ground 15 
and hidden by the wheat, he heard a cuckoo such a long 
way off it sounded like a watch when it is covered up. 
“Cuckoo” did not come full and distinct — it was such a 
tiny little “cuckoo” caught in the hollow of Guido’s ear. 
The cuckoo must have been a mile away. 20 

Suddenly he thought something went over, and yet he 
did not see it — perhaps it was the shadow — and he 
looked up and saw a large bird not very far up, not farther 
than he could fling, or shoot his arrows, and the bird was 
fluttering his wings, but did not move away farther, as if 25 
he had been tied in the air. Guido knew it was a hawk, 
and the hawk was staying there to see if there was a mouse 
or a little bird in the wheat. After a minute the hawk 
stopped fluttering and lifted his wings together as a butter¬ 
fly does when he shuts his, and down the hawk came, 30 
straight into the corn. “Go away! ” shouted Guido jump¬ 
ing up, and flinging his cap, and the hawk, dreadfully 


36 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


frightened and terribly cross, checked himself and rose 
again with an angry rush. So the mouse escaped, but 
Guido could not find his cap for some time. Then he went 
on, and still the ground sloping sent him down the hill till 
5 he came close to the copse. 

Some sparrows came out from the copse 0 , and he stopped 
and saw one of them perch on a stalk of wheat, with one 
foot above the other sideways, so that he could pick at 
the ear and get the corn. Guido watched the sparrow clear 
io the ear, then he moved, and the sparrows flew back to the 
copse, where they chattered at him for disturbing them. 
There was a ditch between the corn and the copse, and a 
streamlet; he picked up a stone and threw it in, and the 
splash frightened a rabbit, who slipped over the bank and 
x$ into a hole. The boughs of an oak reached out across to 
the corn, and made so pleasant a shade that Guido, who 
was very hot from walking in the sun, sat down on the 
bank of the streamlet with his feet dangling over it, and 
watched the floating grass sway slowly as the water ran. 
20 Gently he leaned back till his back rested on the sloping 
ground — he raised one knee, and left the other foot over 
the verge where the tip of the tallest rushes touched it. 
Before he had been there a minute he remembered the 
secret which a fern had taught him. 

25 First, if he wanted to know anything, or to hear a story, 
or what the grass was saying, or the oak-leaves singing, he 
must be careful not to interfere as he had done just now 
with the butterfly by trying to catch him. Fortunately, 
that butterfly was a nice butterfly, and very kindhearted, 
30 but sometimes, if you interfered with one thing, it would 
tell another thing, and they would all know in a moment, 
and stop talking, and never say a word. Once, while they 


OUT OF DOORS 


37 


were all talking pleasantly, Guido caught a fly in his hand; 
he felt his hand tickle as the fly stepped on it, and he shut 
up his little fist so quickly he caught the fly in the hollow 
between the palm and his fingers. The fly went buzz, and 
rushed to get out, but Guido laughed, so the fly buzzed 5 
again, and just told the grass, and the grass told the bushes, 
and everything knew in a moment, and Guido never heard 
another word all that day. Yet sometimes now they all 
knew something about him; they would go on talking. 
You see, they all rather petted and spoiled him. Next, ,io 
if Guido did not hear them conversing, the fern said he 
must touch a little piece of grass and put it against his 
cheek, or a leaf, and kiss it, and say, “ Leaf, leaf, tell them I 
am here.” 

Now, while he was lying down, and the tip of the rushes 15 
touched his foot, he remembered this, so he moved the rush 
with his foot and said, “Rush, rush, tell them I am here.” 
Immediately there came a little wind, and the wheat swung 
to and fro, the oak-leaves rustled, the rushes bowed, and 
the shadows slipped forwards and back again. Then it 20 
was still. 


— Richard Jefferies (adapted). 



THE TABOO 


There is a marked similarity, almost an identity, between 
the religious institutions of most of the Polynesian islands 0 ; 
and in all exists the mysterious “Taboo,” restricted in its 
uses to a greater or less extent. So strange and complex 
5 in its arrangements is this remarkable system, that I have 
in several cases met with individuals who, after residing 
for years among the islands in the Pacific, and acquiring 
a considerable knowledge of the language, have neverthe¬ 
less been altogether unable to give any satisfactory account 
io of its operations. Situated as I was in the Typee valley, 
I perceived every hour the effects of this all-controlling 
power, without in the least comprehending it. Those effects 
were indeed wide-spread and universal, pervading the most 
important as well as the minutest transactions of life. The 
is savage, in short, lives in the continual observance of its dic¬ 
tates, which guide and control every action of his being. 

For several days after entering the valley, I had been 
saluted at least fifty times in the twenty-four hours with the 
talismanic 0 word “Taboo” shrieked in my ears, at some 
20 gross violation of its provisions, of which I had uncon¬ 
sciously been guilty. The day after our arrival I happened 
to hand some tobacco to Toby over the head of a native 
who sat between us. He started up as if stung by an 
adder; while the whole company, manifesting an equal 
25 degree of horror, simultaneously screamed out “Taboo!” 
I never again perpetrated a similar piece of ill-manners, 
38 


THE TABOO 


39 


which indeed was forbidden by the canons of good breeding 
as well as by the mandates of the taboo. But it was not 
always so easy to perceive wherein you had contravened 0 
the spirit of this institution. I was many times called to 
order, if I may use the phrase, when I could not for the life 5 
of me conjecture what particular offense I had committed. 

One day I was strolling through a secluded portion of the 
valley; and hearing the musical sound of the cloth-mallet 
at a little distance, I turned down a path that conducted 
me in a few moments to a house where there were some 10 
half-dozen girls employed in making tappa 0 . This was an 
operation I had frequently witnessed, and had handled 
the bark in all the various stages of its preparation. On 
the present occasion the females were intent upon their 
occupation; and after looking up and talking gayly to me is 
for a few moments, they resumed their employment: I 
regarded them for awhile in silence, and then carelessly 
picking up a handful of the material that lay around, 
proceeded unconsciously to pick it apart. While thus 
engaged, I was suddenly startled by a scream, like that of 20 
a whole boarding-school of young ladies just on the point 
of going into hysterics. Leaping up with the idea of seeing 
a score of Happar warriors about to perform anew the 
Sabine atrocity 0 , I found myself confronted by the com¬ 
pany of girls, who, having dropped their work, stood before 25 
me with staring eyes, swelling bosoms, and fingers pointed 
in horror towards me. 

Thinking that some venomous reptile must be con¬ 
cealed in the bark which I held in my hand, I began cau¬ 
tiously to separate and examine it. Whilst I did so the 30 
horrified girls redoubled their shrieks. Their wild cries 
and frightened motions actually alarmed me; and throwing 


40 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


down the tappa, I was about to rush from the house, when 
in the same instant their clamors ceased, and one of them, 
seizing me by the arm, pointed to the broken fibres that 
had just fallen from my grasp, and screamed in my ear 
s the fatal word “ Taboo! ” 

I subsequently found out that the fabric they were 
engaged in making was of a peculiar kind, destined to be 
worn on the heads of females; and through every stage 
of its manufacture was guarded by a rigorous taboo, which 
io interdicted the whole masculine gender from even so much 
as touching it. 

Frequently in walking through the groves, I observed 
bread-fruit and cocoanut trees with a wreath of leaves 
twined in a peculiar fashion about their trunks. This 
i 5 was the mark of the taboo. The trees themselves, their 
fruit, and even the shadows they cast upon the ground, 
were consecrated by its presence. In the same way a pipe 
which the King had bestowed upon me was rendered sacred 
in the eyes of the natives, none of whom could I ever pre- 
20 vail upon to smoke from it. The bowl was encircled by a 
woven band of grass, somewhat resembling those Turks’ 
heads occasionally worked in the handles of our whip- 
stalks. A similar badge was once braided about my wrist 
by the royal hand of Mehevi himself, who, as soon as he 
25 had concluded the operation, pronounced me “ Taboo.” 
This occurred shortly after Toby’s disappearance; and 
were it not that from the first moment I had entered the 
valley the natives had treated me with uniform kindness, 
I should have supposed that their conduct afterwards was 
30 to be ascribed to the fact that I had received this sacred 
investiture. 


— Herman Melville. 


SCHOOL DAYS AT THE CONVENT 


I waited for night and supper very impatiently. Rec¬ 
reation time began as soon as we left the refectory 0 . In 
summer the two classes went to the garden. In winter 
each class went to its own room: the seniors to their fine 
and spacious study; we to our forlorn quarters, where 5 
there was no room to play, and where our teacher forced 
us to “amuse” ourselves quietly, — that is, not at all. 
Leaving the refectory always made a momentary confu¬ 
sion, and I admired the way the “devils” of the two classes 
managed to create the slight disorder under whose favor io 
one could easily escape. The cloister 0 had but one little 
lamp to light it: this left the other three galleries in semi¬ 
darkness. Instead of walking straight ahead towards the 
juniors’ room, you stepped to the left, let the flock pass on, 
and you were free. I did so, and found myself in the dark is 
with my friend Mary and the other “devils” she had told 
me would be there. They were all armed, some with logs, 
others with tongs. I had nothing, but was bold enough to 
go to the school-room, get a poker, and return to my 
accomplices without being noticed. 20 

Then they initiated me into the great secret, and we 
started on our expedition. 

The great secret was the traditional legend of the con¬ 
vent : a dream handed down from generation to genera¬ 
tion, and from “devil” to “devil,” for about two cen- 25 
41 


42 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


turies; a romantic fiction which may have had some foun¬ 
dation of truth at the beginning, but now rested merely on 
the needs of our imagination. Its object was to “ deliver 
the victim.” There was a prisoner, some said several 
5 prisoners, shut up somewhere in an impenetrable retreat: 
either a cell hidden and bricked up in the thickness of the 
walls, or in a dungeon under the vaults of the immense 
sub-basements extending beneath the monastery as well 
as under a great part of the Saint-Victor district. There 
io were indeed magnificent cellars there, — a real subterra¬ 
nean city, whose limits we never found, — and they had 
many mysterious outlets at different points within the vast 
area of the inclosure. We were told that at a great distance 
off, these cellars joined the excavations running under the 
is greater part of Paris and the surrounding country as far 
as Vincennes 0 . They said that by following our convent 
cellars you could reach the Catacombs 0 , the quarries, the 
baths of Julian 0 , and what not. These vaults were the 
key to a world of darkness, terrors, mysteries : an immense 
20 abyss dug beneath our feet, closed by iron gates, whose 
exploration was as perilous as the descent into hell of iEneas 
or Dante. For this reason it was absolutely imperative to 
get there, in spite of the insurmountable difficulties of the 
enterprise, and the terrible punishments the discovery of 
25 our secret would provoke. 

Entering these subterranean domains was one of those 
unhoped-for strokes of good luck that occurred once, or at 
most twice, in the life of a “devil,” after years of per¬ 
severance and mental effort. It was of no use thinking 
30 of getting in by the main door. That door was at the bot¬ 
tom of a wide staircase next to the kitchens, which were 
cellars too; and here the lay sisters 0 congregated. 


SCHOOL DAYS AT THE CONVENT 


43 


But we were sure that the vaults could be reached by 
a thousand other ways, even by the roof. According 
to us, every nailed-up door, every dark corner under 
a staircase, every hollow-sounding wall, might commun¬ 
icate mysteriously with the subterranean region; and5 
we looked for that communication most earnestly up to 
the very attic. 

I had read Mrs. Radcliffe’s “Castle of the Pyrenees” 0 
at Nohant, with terror and delight. My companions had 
many another Scotch and Irish legend in their heads, all 10 
fit to set one’s hair on end. The convent too had innu¬ 
merable stories of its own lamentable events, — about 
ghosts, dungeons, inexplicable apparitions, and mysterious 
noises. All this, and the thought of finally discovering 
the tremendous secret of the victim, so kindled our imagi-15 
nations that we were sure we heard sighs and groans start 
from under the stones, or breathe through the cracks of 
doors and walls. 

We started off, my companions for the hundredth, I for 
the first time, in search of that elusive captive, — languish- 20 
ing no one knew where, but certainly somewhere, and whom 
perhaps we were called to discover. She must have been 
very old, considering how long she had been sought in vain! 
She might have been over two hundred years old, but we 
did not mind that! We sought her, called her, thought 25 
of her incessantly, and never despaired. 

That evening I was led into the oldest and most broken- 
up part of the buildings, — perhaps the most exciting lo¬ 
cality for our exploration. We selected a little passage 
with wooden railings overlooking an empty space without 30 
any known outlet. A staircase with banisters led to this 
unknown region, but an oaken door forbade access to the 


44 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


stairs. We had to get around the obstacle by passing from 
the railing to the banisters, and walk down the outside of 
the worm-eaten balusters. There was a dark void below 
us whose depth we could not fathom. We had only a little 
5 taper (a “rat”), and that hardly let us see more than the 
first steps of the mysterious staircase. 

We were at the bottom in a moment; and with more joy 
than disappointment found that we were directly under the 
passage, in a square space without any opening. Not a 
io door nor a window, nor any explicable purpose for this sort 
of closed vestibule. Why was there a staircase leading into 
a blind space? Why was there a strong padlocked door 
shutting off the staircase? 

The little taper was divided into several lengths, and 
15 each one began examining for herself. The staircase was 
made of wood. A secret spring in one of the steps must 
lead to a passage, another staircase, or a hidden trap. 
While some explored the staircase, and tried to force its 
old planks apart, others groped along the wall in search 
20 of a knob, a rack, a ring, or any of the thousand contri¬ 
vances mentioned in the chronicles of old manors as moving 
a stone, turning a panel, or opening an entrance into 
unknown regions. 

Alas, there was nothing! The wall was smooth and 
25 plastered. The pavement sounded dull; not a stone was 
loose, and the staircase hid no spring. One of us looked 
further. She declared that in the extreme corner under 
the staircase the wall had a hollow sound; we struck it, 
and found it true. “It’s here!” we all exclaimed. 
30 “There’s a walled-up passage in there, but that passage 
leads to the awful dungeon. That is the way down to the 
sepulchre holding the living victims.” We glued our ears 


SCHOOL DAYS AT THE CONVENT 


45 


to the wall, heard nothing; still the discoverer maintained 
that she could hear confused groans and clanking chains. 
What was to be done? 

“Why, it’s quite plain/’ said Mary: “we must pull the 
wall down. All of us together can surely make a hole in 5 
it.” 

Nothing seemed easier to us; and we all went to work, — 
some trying to knock it down with their logs, others scrap¬ 
ing it with their shovels and tongs, — never thinking that 
by worrying those poor shaky walls, we risked tumbling the 10 
building down on our heads. Fortunately we could not 
do much harm, because the noise made by the logs would 
have attracted some one. 

We had to be satisfied with pushing and scratching. 
Yet we had managed to make quite a noticeable hole in the is 
plaster, lime, and stones, when the bell rang for prayers. 
We had just time to repeat our perilous escapade 0 , put out 
our lights, separate, and grope our way back to the school¬ 
rooms. We put off the continuation of the enterprise till 
the next day, and appointed the same place of meeting. 20 
Those who got there first were not to wait for those who 
might be detained by punishment or unusual surveillance. 
Each one was to do her best to scoop out the wall. It 
would be just so much done toward the next day’s work. 
There was no chance of any one’s noticing it, as no one 25 
ever went down into that blind hallway given over to mice 
and spiders. 

We dusted each other off, regained the cloister, slipped 
into our respective class-rooms, and were ready to kneel 
at prayers with the others. I forget whether we were no- 30 
ticed and punished that evening. It happened so often 
that no single event of the kind has any special date in the 


46 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


great number. Still we could often carry on our work 
with impunity. 

The search for the great secret and the dungeon lasted 
the whole winter I spent in the junior class. The wall 
5 was perceptibly damaged, but we were stopped by reaching 
wooden girders. We looked elsewhere, ransacked twenty 
different places, never having the least success, yet never 
losing hope. 

One day we thought we would look for some mansard ° 
io window which might be, so to speak, the upper key to the so 
ardently desired subterranean world. There were many 
such windows, whose purpose we ignored. There was a 
little room in the attic where we practiced on one of the 
thirty pianos scattered through the establishment. We had 
i5 an hour for this practice every day, and very few of us cared 
for it. As I always loved music, I liked to practice. But 
I was becoming more of an artist in romance than music; 
for what more beautiful poem could there be than the ro¬ 
mance in action we were pursuing with our joint imagina- 
20 tions, courage, and palpitating emotions ? 

In this way the piano hour became the daily hour for 
adventures, without detriment, however, to the evening 
ones. We appointed meetings in one of these straggling 
rooms, and from there would go to the “I don’t know 
25 where” or the “As you please” of fancy. 

From the attic where I was supposed to be playing scales, 
I could see a labyrinth of roofs, sheds, lofts, and slopes, 
all covered with moss-grown tiles and decorated with 
broken chimneys, offering a vast field for new explorations. 
30 So on the roof we went. It was not hard to jump out of 
the window. Six feet below us there was a gutter joining 
two gables. It was more imprudent than difficult to scale 


SCHOOL DAYS AT THE CONVENT 


47 


these gables, meet others, jump from slope to slope, and 
run about like cats; and danger, far from restraining, only 
seemed to stimulate us. 

There was something exceedingly foolish, but at the 
same time heroic, in this mania of “seeking the victim” ;s 
foolish, because we had to suppose that the nuns, whose 
gentleness and kindness we worshipped, were practicing 
horrible tortures upon some one; heroic, because we risked 
our lives every day to deliver an imaginary creature, who 
was the object of our most generous thought and mostio 
chivalrous undertakings. 

We had been out about an hour, spying into the garden, 
looking down on a great part of the courts and buildings, 
and carefully hiding behind chimneys whenever we saw a 
black^veiled nun, who might have raised her head and is 
seen us in the clouds, when we asked ourselves how we 
should get back. The arrangement of the roofs had 
allowed us to step or jump down. * Going up was not so 
easy. I think it would have been impossible without a 
ladder. We scarcely knew where we were. At last we 20 
recognized a parlor-boarder’s window, -— Sidonie Mac¬ 
donald’s, the celebrated general’s daughter. It could be 
reached by a final jump, but would be more dangerous than 
the others. I jumped too hurriedly, and caught my heel 
in a flat sky-light, through which I should have fallen 25 
thirty feet into a hall near the junior’s room, if by chance 
my awkwardness had not made me swerve. I got off 
with two badly flayed knees, but did not give them a second 
thought. My heel had broken into a part of the sash of 
that deuced window, and smashed half a dozen panes, 30 
which dropped with a frightful crash quite near the kitchen 
entrance. A great noise arose at once among the lay sisters, 



48 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


and through the opening I had just made, we could hear 
Sister Theresa’s loud voice screaming, “Cats!” and accus¬ 
ing Whisky — Mother Alippe’s big tom-cat — of fighting 
with all his fellows, and breaking all the windows in the 
s house. But sister Mary defended the cat’s morals, and 
Sister Helen was sure that a chimney had fallen on the 
roof. This discussion started the nervous giggle that 
nothing can stop in little girls. We heard the sisters on 
the stairs, we should be caught in the very act of walking 
io on the roofs, and still we could not stir to find refuge. 
Then I discovered that one of my shoes was gone, — that 
it had dropped through the broken sash into the kitchen 
hall. Though my knees were bleeding, my laughter was so 
uncontrollable that I could riot say a word, but merely 
is showed my unshod foot and explained what had happened 
by dumb show. A new explosion of laughter followed, 
although the alarm had been given and the lay sisters were 
near. # 

We were soon reassured. Being sheltered and hidden by 
20 overhanging roofs, we could hardly be discovered without 
getting up to the broken window by a ladder, or following 
the road we had taken. And that was something we could 
safely challenge any of the nuns to do. So when we had 
recognized the advantage of our position, we began to 
25 me-ouw Homerically, so that W T hisky and his family might 
be accused and convicted in our stead. Then we made 
for the window of Sidonie, who did not welcome us. The 
poor child was practicing on the piano, and paying no at¬ 
tention to the feline howls vaguely striking her ear. She 
3 o was delicate and nervous, very gentle, and quite incapable 
of understanding what pleasure we could find in roaming 
over roofs. As she sat playing, her back was turned to 


SCHOOL DAYS AT THE CONVENT 


49 


the window; and when we burst into it in a bunch, she 
screamed aloud. We lost little time in quieting her. Her 
cries would attract the nuns; so we sprang into the room 
and scampered to the door, while she stood trembling and 
staring, seeing all the strange procession flit by without 5 
understanding it nor recognizing any one of us, so terrified 
was she. In a moment we had all dispersed: one went to 
the upper room whence we had started, and played the 
piano with might and main; another took a round-about 
way to the school-room. As for me, I had to find my shoe, 10 
and secure that piece of evidence, if I still had the time. 

I managed to avoid the lay sisters, and to find the kitchen 
entry free. “Audaces fortuna juvat,”° said I to myself 
thinking of the aphorisms Deschartres 0 had taught me 
And indeed I found the lucky shoe, where it had fallen in 15 
a dark corner and not been seen. Whisky alone was 
accused. My knees hurt me very much for a few days 
but, I did not brag of them; and the explorations did not 
slacken. 

— George Sand (adapted). 20 





IN BRITTANY 


She [the writer, L. M. A.] soon ceased to be surprised 
at any demonstration of feminine strength, skill, and 
independence, for everywhere the women took the lead. 

They not only kept house, reared children, and knit 
5 every imaginable garment the human frame can wear, but 
kept the shops and the markets, tilled the gardens, cleaned 
the streets, and bought and sold cattle, leaving the men 
free to enjoy the only pursuits they seemed inclined to 
follow, — breaking horses®, mending roads, and getting 
io drunk. 

The markets seemed entirely in the hands of the women, 
and lively scenes they presented to unaccustomed eyes, 
especially the pig-market, held every week, in the square 
before Madame C/s house. At dawn the squealing began, 
15 and was kept up till sunset. The carts came in from all 
the neighboring hamlets, with tubs full of infant pigs, over 
which the women watched with maternal care till they were 
safely deposited among the rows of tubs that stood along 
the walk facing Anne of Bretaigne’s® gray old tower, and 
20 the pleasant promenade which was once the fosse® about 
the city walls. 

Here Madame would seat herself and knit briskly till 
a purchaser applied, when she would drop her work, dive 
among the pink innocents, and hold one up by its unhappy 
25 leg, undisturbed by its doleful cries, while she settled its 

50 


IN BRITTANY 


51 


price with a blue-gowned, white-capped neighbor, as sharp- 
witted and shrill-tongued as herself. If the bargain was 
struck, they slapped their hands together in a peculiar 
way, and the new owner clapped her purchase into a meal- 
bag, slung it over her shoulder, and departed with her 5 
squirming, squealing treasure as calmly as a Boston lady 
with a satchel full of ribbons and gloves. 

More mature pigs came to market on their own legs, and 
very long, feeble legs they were, for a more unsightly 
beast than a Breton pig was never seen out of a toy Noah’s 10 
ark. Tall, thin, high-backed, and sha^p-nosed, these por¬ 
cine 0 victims tottered to their doom, with dismal wailings, 
and not a vestige of spirit till the trials and excitement of 
the day goaded them to rebellion, when their antics fur¬ 
nished fun for the public. Miss Livy observed that the is 
women could manage the pigs when men failed entirely. 
The latter hustled, lugged, or lashed, unmercifully and un¬ 
successfully ; the former, with that fine tact which helps 
them to lead nobler animals than pigs, would soothe, 
sympathize, coax, and gently beguile the poor beasts, or 20 
devise ways of mitigating their bewilderment and woe, 
which did honor to the sex, and triumphantly illustrated 
the power of moral suasion. 

One amiable lady, who had purchased two small pigs 
and a coop full of fowls, attempted to carry them all on 25 
one donkey. But the piggies rebelled lustily in the bags, 
the ducks remonstrated against their unquiet neighbors, 
and the donkey indignantly refused to stir a step till the 
unseemly uproar was calmed. But the Bretonne was equal 
to the occasion; for, after a pause of meditation, she solved 3° 
the problem by tying the bags round the necks of the pigs 
so that they could enjoy the prospect. This appeased 


52 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


them at once, and produced a general lull; for when the 
pigs stopped squealing, the ducks stopped quacking, the 
donkey ceased his bray, and the party moved on in dig¬ 
nified silence, with the youthful pigs, one black, one white, 
5 serenely regarding life from their bags. 

Another time, a woman leading a newly bought cow, 
came through the square, where the noise alarmed the 
beast so much that she became unruly, and pranced in a 
most dangerous manner. Miss Livy hung out of the win- 
io dow, breathless with interest, and ready to fly with brandy 
and bandages at a minute’s notice, for it seemed inevitable 
that the woman would be tossed up among the lindens 
before the cow was conquered. The few men who were 
lounging about, stood with their hands in their pockets, 
15 watching the struggle without offering to help, till the cow 
scooped the lady up on her horns ready for a toss. Livy 
shrieked, but Madame just held on, kicking so vigorously 
that the cow was glad to set her down, when, instead of 
fainting she coolly informed the men, who, seeing her 
20danger, had approached, that she “could arrange her 
cow for herself and did not want any help,” which she 
proved by tying a big blue handkerchief over the animal’s 
eyes, producing instant docility; and then she was led 
away by her flushed but triumphant mistress, who calmly 
25 settled her cap, and took a pinch of snuff to refresh herself, 
after a scuffle which would have annihilated most women. 

When Madame C.’s wood was put in, the newcomers 
were interested in watching the job, for it was done in a 
truly Bretonesque manner. It arrived in several odd carts, 
30 each drawn by four great horses, with men to each team ; 
and as the carts were clumsy, the horses wild, and the men 
stupid, the square presented a lively spectacle. At one 


IN BRITTANY 


53 


time there were three carts, twelve horses, and six men all 
in a snarl, while a dozen women stood at their doors and 
gave advice. One was washing a lettuce, another dressing 
her baby, a third twirling her distaff, and a fourth with 
her little bowl of soup, which she ate in public while ges- 5 
ticulating so frantically that her sabots 0 clattered on the 
stones. 

The horses had a free fight, and the men swore and 
shouted in vain, till the lady with the baby suddenly went 
to the rescue. Planting the naked cherub on the door-10 
step, this energetic matron charged in among the rampant 
animals, and by some magic touch untangled the teams, 
quieted the most fractious, a big gray brute prancing like 
a mad elephant, then returned to her baby, who was pla¬ 
cidly eating dirt, and with a polite “Voila, messieurs!” 0 15 
she whipped little Jean into his shirt, while the men sat 
down to smoke. 

It took two deliberate men nearly a week to split the 
gnarled logs, and one brisk woman carried them into the 
cellar and piled them neatly. The men stopped about 20 
once an hour to smoke, drink cider, or rest. The woman 
worked steadily from morning till night, only pausing at 
noon for a bit of bread and the soup good Coste sent out 
to her. The men got two francs a day, the woman half a 
franc; and, as nothing was taken out of it for wine or to- 25 
bacco, her ten cents probably went farther than their forty. 

This same capable lady used to come to market with a 
baby on one arm, a basket of fruit on the other, leading a 
pig, driving a donkey, and surrounded by sheep, while 
her head bore a pannier 0 of vegetables, and her hands spun 30 
busily with a distaff. How she ever got on with these tri¬ 
fling incumbrances, was a mystery; but there she was, 


54 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


busy, placid, and smiling, in the midst of the crowd, and 
at night went home with her shopping well content. 

The washerwomen were among the happiest of these 
happy souls, and nowhere were seen prettier pictures than 
s they made, clustered round the fountains or tanks by the 
way, scrubbing, slapping, singing, and gossiping, as they 
washed or spread their linen on the green hedges and 
daisied grass in the bright spring weather. One envied the 
cheery faces under the queer caps, the stout arms that 
io scrubbed all day, and were not too tired to carry some 
chubby Jean or little Marie when night came, and, most of 
all, the contented hearts in the broad bosoms under the 
white kerchiefs, for no complaint did one hear from these 
hard-working, happy women. The same brave spirit 
25 seems to possess them now as that which carried them 
heroically to their fate in the Revolution, when hundreds 
of mothers and children were shot at Nantes 0 and died 
without murmur. 


— Louisa Alcott. 


THE ADIRONDACK^ 


One day we visited a cave some two miles down the 
stream, which had recently been discovered. We squeezed 
and wriggled through a big crack or cleft in the side of 
the mountain, for about one hundred feet, when we emerged 
into a large dome-shaped passage, the abode, during cer-5 
tain seasons of the year, of innumerable bats, and at all 
times of primeval darkness. There were various other 
crannies and pit-holes opening into it, some of which we 
explored. The voice of running water was heard every¬ 
where, betraying the proximity of the little stream by 10 
whose ceaseless corroding the cave and its entrance had 
been worn. This streamlet flowed out of the mouth of the 
cave, and came from a lake on the top of the mountain; 
this accounted for its warmth to the hand, which surprised 
us all. 15 

Birds of any kind were rare in these woods. A pigeon- 
hawk came prowling by our camp, and the faint piping call 
of the nuthatches, leading their young through the high 
trees, was often heard. 

On the third day our guide proposed to conduct us to a 20 
lake in the mountains where we could float for deer. 

Our journey commenced in a steep and rugged ascent, p 
w'hich brought us, after an hour’s heavy climbing, to an, 
elevated region of pine-forest, years before ravished by 
lumbermen, and presenting all manner of obstacles to our 25 
55 


56 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


awkward and incumbered pedestrianism. The woods 
were largely pine, though yellow birch, beech and maple 
were common. The satisfaction of having a gun, should 
any game show itself, was the chief compensation to those 
5 of us who were thus burdened. A partridge would occa¬ 
sionally whir up before us, or a red squirrel snicker and 
hasten to his den; else the woods appeared quite tenant¬ 
less. The most noted object was a mammoth pine, ap¬ 
parently the last of a great race, which presided over a 
io cluster of yellow birches, on the side of the mountain. 

About noon we came out upon a long, shallow sheet of 
water which the guide called Bloody Moose Pond, from the 
tradition that a moose had been slaughtered there many 
years before. Looking out over the silent and lovely 
is scene, his eye was the first to detect an object, apparently 
feeding upon lily-pads, which our willing fancies readily 
shaped into a deer. As we were eagerly waiting some 
movement to confirm this impression, it lifted up its head, 
and lo! a great blue heron. Seeing us approach, it spread 
20 its long wings and flew solemnly across to a dead tree on 
the other side of the lake, enhancing rather than relieving 
the loneliness and desolation that brooded over the scene. 
As we proceeded it flew from tree to tree in advance of us, 
apparently loth to be disturbed in its ancient and solitary 
25 domain. In the margin of the pond we found the pitcher- 
plant growing, and here and there in* the sand the closed 
gentian lifted up its blue head. 

In traversing the shores of this wild, desolate lake, I 
was conscious of a slight thrill of expectation, as if some 
30-secret of Nature might here be revealed, or some rare and 
unheard-of game disturbed. There is ever a lurking 
suspicion that the beginning of things is in some way asso- 


THE ADIRONDACKS 


57 


dated with water, and one may notice that in his private 
walks he is led by a curious attraction to fetch all the 
springs and ponds in his route, as if by them was the place 
for wonders and miracles to happen. Once, while in ad¬ 
vance of my companions, I saw, from a high rock, a commo- 5 
tion in the water near the shore, but on reaching the point 
found only the marks of musquash 0 . 

Passing on through the forest, after many adventures 
with the pine knots, we reached, about the middle of the 
afternoon, our destination, Nate’s Pond — a pretty sheet 10 
of water, lying like a silver mirror in the lap of the moun¬ 
tain, about a mile long and half a mile wide, surrounded 
by dark forests of balsam, hemlock, and pine, and, like the 
one we had just passed, a very picture of unbroken solitude. 

It is not in the woods alone to give one this impression 15 
of utter loneliness. In the woods are sounds and voices, 
and a dumb kind of companionship; one is little more than 
a walking tree himself; but come upon one of these moun¬ 
tain lakes, and the wildness stands revealed and meets you 
face to face. Water is thus facile and adaptive, that it 20 
makes the wild more wild, while it enhances culture and 
art. 

The end of the pond which we approached was quite 
shoal, the stones rising above the surface as in a summer 
brook, and everywhere showing marks of the noble game 25 
we were in quest of,.— footprints, dung, and cropped and 
uprooted lily-pads. After resting for a half hour, and re¬ 
plenishing our game-pouches at the expense of the most 
respectable frogs of the locality, we filed on through the 
soft, resinous pinewoods, intending to camp near the other 30 
end of the lake, where, the guide assured us, we should 
find a hunter’s cabin ready built. A half hour’s march 


58 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


brought us to the locality, and a most delightful one it 
was, so hospitable and inviting that all the kindly and 
beneficent influences of the woods must have abided there. 
In a slight depression in the woods, about one hundred 
5 yards from the lake, though hidden from it for a hunter’s 
reasons, surrounded by a heavy growth of birch, hemlock, 
and pine, with a lining of balsam and fir, the rude cabin 
welcomed us. It was of the approved style, three sides 
inclosed, with a roof of bark and a bed of boughs, and a rock 
ioin front that afforded a permanent back-log to all fires. 
A faint voice of running water was heard near by, and, 
following the sound, a delicious spring rivulet was dis¬ 
closed, hidden by the moss and debris as by a new fall of 
snow, but here and there rising in little well-like openings, 
15 as if for our special convenience. 


— John Burroughs. 


AN ASCENT OF KILAUEA 0 ’ 


At last we found ourselves at the very edge of the old 
crater, the bed of which, three or four hundred feet beneath 
us, was surrounded by steep and in many places over¬ 
hanging sides. It looked like an enormous cauldron, four 
or five miles in width, full of a mass of cooled pitch. In 5 
the center was the still glowing stream of dark red lava 
flowing slowly toward us, and in every direction were red- 
hot patches, and flames, and smoke, issuing from the 
ground. 

Yet the first sensation is rather one of disappointment, 10 
as one expects greater activity on the part of the volcano; 
but the new crater was still to be seen, containing the lake of 
fire, with steep walls rising up in the midst of the sea of lava. 

We spent the night at the Volcano House, and at three 
o’clock the next afternoon we set out, a party of eight, with 15 
two guides, and three porters to carry our wraps and pro¬ 
visions, and to bring back specimens. 

First of all we descended the precipice, three hundred 
feet in depth, forming the wall of the old crater, but now 
thickly covered with vegetation. It is so steep in many 20 
places that flights of zigzag wooden steps have been in¬ 
serted in the face of the cliff in some places, in order to 
render the descent practicable. 

At the bottom we stepped straight on to the surface of 
cold boiled lava, which we had seen from above last night. 25 

59 


60 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


Even here, in every crevice where a few grains of soil had 
collected, delicate little ferns might be seen struggling for 
life, and thrusting out their green fronds towards the light. 

It was the most extraordinary walk imaginable, over that 
s vast plain of lava, twisted and distorted into every con¬ 
ceivable shape and form, according to the temperature it 
had originally attained and the rapidity with which it had 
cooled, its surface, like half-molten glass, cracking and 
breaking beneath our feet. 

io Sometimes we came to a patch that looked like the con¬ 
tents of a pot, suddenly petrified in the act of boiling; 
sometimes the black, iridescent lava had assumed the 
form of waves, or more frequently of huge masses of rope, 
twisted and coiled together; sometimes it was piled up like 
15 a collection of organ pipes, or had gathered into mounds 
and cones of various dimensions. 

As we proceeded, the lava became hotter and hotter, 
and from every crack arose gaseous fumes, affecting our 
noses and throats in a painful manner; till at last, when 
20 we had to pass to leeward 0 of the molten stream flowing 
from the lake, the vapors almost choked us, and it was with 
difficulty we continued to advance. 

The lava was more glassy and transparent-looking, as 
if it had been fused at a higher temperature than usual; 
25 and the crystals of sulphur, alum, and other minerals, with 
which it abounded, reflected the light in bright prismatic 
colors. In places it was quite transparent, and we could 
see beneath it the long streaks of a stringy kind of lava, 
like brown spun glass, called “Pele’s hair.” 

30 

At last we reached the foot of the present crater, and 
commenced the ascent of the outer wall. Many times the 


AN ASCENT OF KILAUEA 


61 


thin crust gave way beneath our guide, and he had to re¬ 
tire quickly from the hot, blinding, choking fumes that 
immediately burst forth. But we succeeded in reaching 
the top, and then what a sight presented itself to our 
astonished eyes! I could neither speak nor move at first, 5 
but could only stand and gaze at the horrible grandeur of 
the scene. 

We were standing on the extreme edge of a precipice, 
overhanging a lake of molten fire, a hundred feet below us, 
nearly a mile across. Dashing against the cliffs on the 10 
opposite side, with a noise like the roar of a stormy ocean, 
waves of blood-red fiery liquid lava hurled their billows 
upon an iron-bound headland, and then rushed up the face 
of the cliffs to toss their gory spray high in the air. 

The restless, heaving lake boiled and bubbled, never 15 
remaining the same for two minutes together. Its normal 
color seemed to be a dull dark red, covered with a thin 
gray scum, which every moment and in every part swelled 
and cracked, and emitted fountains, cascades, and whirl¬ 
pools of yellow and red fire, while sometimes one big golden 20 
river, sometimes four or five, flowed across it. 

As the sun set and as darkness enveloped the scene, it 
became more awful than ever. We retired a little way 
from the brink to breathe some fresh air, and to try and 
eat the food we had brought with us; but this was an 25 
impossibility. Every instant a fresh explosion or glare 
made us jump up to survey the scene. 

The violent struggles of the lava to escape from its fiery 
bed, and the loud and awful noises by which they were 
at times, accompanied, suggested the idea that some im- 30 
prisoned monsters were trying “to release themselves from 
their bondage, with shrieks and groans, and cries of agony 


62 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


and despair at the futility of their efforts. Sometimes 
there were at least seven spots on the borders of the lake 
where the molten lava dashed up furiously against the 
rocks — seven fire fountains playing at the same time. 

5 I had for some time been feeling very hot and uncom¬ 
fortable, and on looking round, the cause was at once appar¬ 
ent. Not two inches beneath the surface, the gray lava 
on which we were standing and sitting was red hot. A 
stick thrust through it caught fire, a piece of paper was 
io immediately destroyed, and the gentlemen found the heat 
from the crevices so great that they could not approach 
near enough to light their pipes. 

One more long last look, and then we turned our faces 
away from the scene that had enthralled us for so many 
15 hours. The whole of the lava we had crossed in the ex¬ 
tinct crater was now aglow in many patches, and in all di¬ 
rections flames were bursting forth, fresh lava flowing, and 
steam and smoke were issuing from the surface. 

It was a toilsome journey back again, walking as we did 
20 in single file, and obeying the strict charges of our head 
guide to follow him closely, and to tread exactly in his 
footsteps. On the whole, it was easier by night than by 
day to distinguish the route to be taken, as we could now 
see the dangers that before we could only feel; and many 
25 were the fiery crevices we stepped over and jumped across. 

Once I slipped, and my foot sank through the thin crust. 
Sparks issued from the ground, and the stick on which I 
leaned caught fire before I could fairly recover myself. 

— Lady Brassey. 


THE FETISH 


Before this remonstrance was finished, Maggie was 
already out of hearing, making her way towards the great 
attic that ran under the old high-pitched roof, shaking the 
water from her black locks as she ran, like a Skye terrier 
escaped from his bath. This attic was Maggie’s favorite s 
retreat on a wet day, when the weather was not too cold; 
here she fretted out all her ill-humors, and talked aloud to 
the worm-eaten floors and the worm-eaten shelves, and 
the dark rafters festooned with cobwebs; and here she kept 
a Fetish 0 which she punished for all her misfortunes. This io 
was the trunk of a large wooden doll, which once stared 
with the roundest of .eyes above the reddest of cheeks, 
but was now entirely defaced by a long career of vicarious 0 
suffering. Three nails driven into the head commemo¬ 
rated as many crises in Maggie’s nine years of earthly 15 
struggle; that luxury of vengeance having been suggested 
to her by the picture of Jael° destroying Sisera in the old 
Bible. The last nail had been driven in with a fiercer 
stroke than usual, for the Fetish on that occasion repre¬ 
sented Aunt Glegg. But immediately afterwards Maggie 20 
had reflected that if she drove many nails in, she would 
not be so well able to fancy that the head was hurt, when 
she knocked it against the wall, nor to comfort it, and make 
believe to poultice it, when her fury was abated; for even 
Aunt Glegg would be pitiable when she had been hurt 25 
63 



64 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


very much, and thoroughly humiliated, so as to beg her 
. niece’s pardon. Since then she had driven no more nails 
in, but had soothed herself by alternately grinding and 
beating the wooden head against the rough brick of the 
s great chimneys that made two square pillars supporting 
the roof. That was what she did this morning on reaching 
the attic, sobbing all the while with a passion that expelled 
every other form of consciousness, — even the memory 
of the grievance that had caused it. As at last the sobs 
io were getting quieter, and the grinding less fierce, a sudden 
beam of sunshine, falling through the wire lattice across 
the worm-eaten shelves, made her throw away the Fetish 
and run to the window. The sun was really breaking out; 
the sound of the mill seemed cheerful again; the granary 
15 doors were open; and there was Yap, the queer white-and- 
brown terrier, with one ear turned back, trotting about 
and sniffing vaguely, as if he were in search of a compan¬ 
ion. It was irresistible. Maggie tossed* her hair back and 
ran downstairs, seized her bonnet without putting it on, 
20 peeped, and then dashed along the passage lest she should 
encounter her mother, and was quickly out in the yard, 
whirling round like a Pythoness, and singing as she 
whirled, “Yap, Yap, Tom’s coming home!” while Yap 
danced and barked round her, as much as to say, if there 
25 was any noise wanted he was the dog for it. 

— George Eliot. 


SALMON FISHING IN IRELAND 


The pool has been cut through a peat bog°, and the 
greater part of it is twenty feet deep. A broad fringe of 
water-lilies lines the banks, leaving, however, an available 
space for throwing a fly upon between them. This is the 
great resting-place of the fish on their way to the lake and 5 
the upper river. The water is high, and almost flowing 
over the bog. The wind catches it fairly, tearing along the 
surface and sweeping up the crisp waves in white clouds 
of spray. The party of strangers who had cards to fish 
were before us, but they are on the wrong side, trying 10 
vainly to send their flies in the face of the southwester, 
which whirls their casting-lines back over their heads. 
They have caught a peal° or two, and one of them reports 
that he was broken by a tremendous fish at the end of the 
round-pool. Jack directs them to a bend higher up, where 15 
they will find a second pool as good as this one, with a more 
favorable slant of wind, while I put my rod together and 
turn over the leaves of my fly-book. Among the marvels 
of art and nature I know nothing equal to a salmon-fly. 

It resembles no insect, winged or unwinged, which the fish 20 
can have seen. A shrimp, perhaps, is the most like it, if 
there are degrees to utter dissimilarity. Yet every river 
is supposed to have its favorite flies. Size, color, shape, 
all are peculiar. Here vain tastes prevail for golden 
pheasant and blue and crimson paroquet. There the sal- 25 
f 65 



66 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


mon are as sober as Quakers, and will look at nothing but 
drabs and browns. Nine parts of this are fancy, but there 
is still a portion of truth in it. Bold hungry fish will take 
anything in any river; shy fish will undoubtedly rise and 
5 splash at a stranger’s fly, while they will swallow what is 
offered them by any one who knows their ways. It may 
be something in the color of the water: it may be some¬ 
thing in the color of the banks : experience is too uniform 
to allow the fact itself to be questioned. Under Jack’s 
io direction, I select small flies about the size of green drakes: 
one a sombre gray, with a silver twist about him, a claret 
hackle 0 , a mallard wing°, streaked faintly on the lower 
side with red and blue. The drop fly is still darker, with 
purple legs and olive green wings and body. 

15 We move to the head of the pool and begin to cast in the 
gravelly shallows, on which the fish lie to feed in a flood, 
a few yards above the deep water. A white trout or two 
rise, and presently I am fast in something which excites 
momentary hopes. The heavy rod bends to the butt. A 
20 yard or two of line runs out, but a few seconds show that 
it is only a large trout which has struck at the fly with his 
tail, and has been hooked foul. He cannot break me, and 
I do not care if he escapes, so I bear hard upon him and 
drag him by main force to the side, where Harper slips 
25 the net under his head, and the next moment he is on the 
bank. Two pounds within an ounce or so, but clean run 
from the sea, brought up by last night’s flood, and without 
a stain of the bog-water on the pure silver of his scales. 
He has disturbed the shallow, so we move a few steps down. 
30 There is an alder bush on the opposite side, where the 
strength of the river is running. It is a long cast. The 
wind is blowing so hard that I can scarcely keep my footing, 


SALMON FISHING IN IRELAND 


67 


and the gusts whirl so unsteadily that I cannot hit the 
exact spot where, if there is a salmon in the neighborhood, 
he is lying. 

The line flies out straight at last, but I have now thrown 
a few inches too far; my tail fly is in the bush, dangling 5 
across an overhanging bough. An impatient movement, 
a jerk, or a straight pull, and I am “hung up,” as is the 
phrase, and delayed for half an hour at least. Happily 
there is a lull in the storm. I shake the point of the rod. 
The vibration runs along the line; the fly drops softly 10 
like a leaf upon the water — and as it, floats away some¬ 
thing turns heavily, and a huge brown back is visible for an 
instant through a rift in the surface. But the line comes 
home. He was an old stager, as we could see by his color, 
no longer ravenous as when fresh from the salt-water. He 15 
was either lazy and missed the fly, or it was not entirely to 
his mind. He was not touched, and we drew back to con¬ 
sider. “Over him again while he is angry,” is the saying 
in some rivers, and I have known it to answer where the 
fish feed greedily. But it will not do here; we must give 20 
him time; and we turn again to the fly-book. When a 
salmon rises at a small fly as if he meant business, yet fails 
to take it, the rule is to try another of the same pattern 
a size larger. This too, however, just now Jack thinks 
unfavorably of. The salmon is evidently a very large one, 25 
and will give us enough to do if we hook him. He there¬ 
fore, as one precaution, takes off the drop fly lest it catch 
in the water-lilies. He next puts the knots of the casting¬ 
line through a severe trial; replaces an unsound joint 
with a fresh link of gut, and finally produces out of his hat 30 
a “hook” — he will not call it a fly — of his own dressing. 

Tt is a particolored father-long-legs, a thing which only 


68 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


some frantic specimen of orchid ever seriously approached, 
a creature whose wings were two strips of the fringe of a 
peacock’s tail, whose legs descended from blue jay through 
red to brown, and terminated in a pair of pink trailers two 
s inches long. Jack had found it do, and he believed it would 
do for me. And so it did. I began to throw again six 
feet above the bush, for a salmon often shifts his ground 
after rising. One cast — a second — another trout rises 
which we receive with an anathema 0 , and drag the fly out 
io of his reach. The fourth throw there is a swirl like the 
wave which arises under the blade of an oar, a sharp sense 
of hard resistance, a pause, and then a rush for dear life. 
The wheel shrieks, the line hisses through the rings, and 
thirty yards down the pool the great fish springs madly 
is six feet into the air. The hook is firm in his upper jaw; 
he had not shaken its hold, for the hook had gone into the 
bone — pretty subject of delight for a reasonable man, an 
editor of a magazine, and a would-be philosopher, turned 
fifty! The enjoyments of the unreasoning part of us can- 
20 not be defended on grounds of reason, and experience 
shows that men who are all logic and morals, and, have 
nothing of the animal left in them, are poor creatures 
after all. 

Any way, I defy philosophy with a twenty-pound 
25 salmon fast hooked, and a pool right ahead four hundred 
yards long and half full of water-lilies. “Keep him up the 
strame,” shrieked a Paddy, who, on the screaming of the 
wheel, had flung down his spade in the turf bog and rushed 
up to see the sport. “Keep him up the strame, your 
30 honor — bloody wars! you’ll lost him else.” We were at 
fault, Jack and I. We did not understand why down 
stream was particularly dangerous, and Pat was too eager 


SALMON FISHING IN IRELAND 


69 


and too busy swearing to explain himself. Alas, his mean¬ 
ing became soon but too intelligible. I had overtaken the 
fish on the bank and had wheeled in the line again, but he 
was only collecting himself for a fresh rush, and the next 
minute it seemed as if the bottom had been knocked out of 5 
the pool and an opening made into infinity. Round flew 
the wheel again; fifty yards were gone in as many seconds, 
the rod was bending double, and the line pointed straight 
down; straight as if there was a lead at the end of it and 
unlimited space in which to sink. “Ah, didn’t I tell ye 10 
so?” said Pat; “what will we do now?” Too late Jack 
remembered that fourteen feet down at the bottom of that 
pool lay the stem of a fallen oak, below which the water 
had made a clear channel. The fish had turned under it, 
and whether he was now up the river or down, or where he 15 
was who could tell? He stopped at last. “Hold him 
hard,” said Jack, hurling off his clothes, and while I was 
speculating whether it would be possible to drag him back 
the way that he had gone, a pink body flashed from behind 
me, bounded off the bank with a splendid header, and 20 
disappeared. He was under for a quarter of a minute; 
when he rose he had the line in his hand between the fish 
and the tree. 

“All right,” he sputtered, swimming with the other 
hand to the bank and. scrambling up. “Run the rest of 25 
the line off the reel and out through the rings.” He had 
divined by a brilliant instinct the only remedy for our 
situation. The thing .was done, fast as Pat and I could 
ply our fingers. The loose end was drawn round the log, 
and while Jack was humoring the fish with his hand, and 30 
dancing up and down the bank regardless of proprieties, 
we had carried it back down the rings, replaced it on the 




70 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


reel, wound in the slack, and had again command of the 
situation. 

The salmon had played his best stroke. It had failed 
him, and he now surrendered like a gentleman. A mean- 
5 spirited Ush will go to the bottom, bury himself in the weed, 
and sulk. Ours set his head towards the sea, and sailed 
down the length of the pool in the open water without at¬ 
tempting any more plunges. As his strength failed, he 
turned heavily on his back, and allowed himself to be drawn 
io to the shore. The gaff ° was in his side and he was ours. 
He was larger than we had guessed him. Clean run he 
would have weighed twenty-five pounds. The fresh water 
had reduced him to twenty-two, but without softening his 
muscle or touching his strength, 
is —James Froude (adapted). 


ACROSS RUNNING WATER 


At a running water, that comes out at a place called 
Srath-namara, near the sea-gates of Loch Suibhne, there 
is a pool called the Pool of the Changeling. None ever 
goes that way from choice, for only the crying of the cur¬ 
lew is heard there, or the querulous wailing lapwing. 5 
It was here that one night, in a September of many 
storms, a woman stood staring at the sea. The screaming 
seamews 0 wheeled and sank and circled overhead, and the 
solanders 0 rose with heavy wing and hoarse cries, and the 
black scarts screeched to the startled guillemots 0 or to the io 
foam-white terns® blown before the wind like froth. The 
woman looked neither at the seafowl nor at the burning 
glens of scarlet flame which stretched dishevelled among 
the ruined lands of the sunset. 

Between the black flurries of the wind, striking the sea 15 
like flails, came momentary pauses or long silences. In 
one of these the woman raised her arms, she the while 
unheeding the cold tidewash about her feet, where she stood 
insecurely on the wet slippery tangle. 

Seven years ago this woman had taken the one child 20 
she had, that she did not believe to be her own but a 
changeling, and had put it on the shore at the extreme edge 
of the tide-reach, and had left it for the space of an hour. 
When she came back, the child she had left with a numb¬ 
ness on its face and with the curse of dumbness, was 25 
71 



72 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


laughing wild, and when she came near, it put out its arms 
and gave the cry of the young of birds. She lifted the 
“leanav” in her arms and stared into its eyes, but there 
was no longer the weary blankness, and the little one 
5 yearned with the petulant laughing and idle whimpering 
of the children of other mothers. And that mother there 
gave a cry of joy, and with a singing heart went home. 

It was in the seventh year after that finding by the sea, 
that one day, when a cold wind was blowing from the west, 
io the child Morag came in by the peat-fire, where her mother 
was boiling the porridge, and looked at her without speak¬ 
ing. The mother turned at that, and looked at Morag. 
Her heart sank like a pool-lily at shadow, when she saw 
that Morag had woven a wreath of brown tangled seaweed 
15 into her hair. But that was nothing to the bite in her 
breast when the girl began singing a song that had not a 
word in it she had ever heard on her own or other lips, but 
was wild as the sound of the tide calling in dark nights of 
cloud and wind, or as the sudden coming of waves over a 
20 quiet sea in the silence of the black hours of sleep. 

“What is it, Morag-mo-run?” she asked, her voice like 
a reed in the wind. 

“It’s time,” says Morag, with a change in her eyes, and 
her face shining with a gleam on it. 

25 “Time for what, Morag?” 

“For me to be going back to the place I came from.” 

“And where will that be?” 

“Where would it be but to the place you took me out 
of, and called across?” 

30 The mother gave a cry and a sob. “Sure, now, Morag- 
a-ghraidh, you will be my own lass and no other?” 

“Whist, woman,” answered the girl; “don’t you hear 


ACROSS RUNNING WATER 


73 


the laughing in the burn 0 , and the hoarse voice out in the 
sea?” 

“That I do not, 0 Morag-mo-chridh, and sure it’s black 
sorrow to you and to me hearing that hoarse voice and that 
thin laughing.” 5 

“Well, sorrow or no sorrow, Fm off now, poor woman 0 . 
And it’s good-bye, and a good-bye to you I’ll be saying 
to you, poor woman. Sure it’s a sorrow to me to leave you 
in grief, but if you’ll go down to the edge of the water, 
at the place you took me from, where the runnin’ water io 
falls into the sea-pool, you’ll be having there against your 
breast in no time the child of your own that I never was 
and never could be.” 

“And why that, and why that, O Morag, lennavan- 
mo?” 15 

“Peace on your sorrow, woman, and good-bye to you 
now;” and with that the sea-changeling went laughing 
out at the door, singing a wave-song that was so wild and 
strange the mother’s woe was turned to a fear that rose 
like chill water in her heart. 20 

When she dared follow — and why she did not go at 
once she did not know — she saw at first no sight of Morag 
or any other on the lonely shore. In vain she called, with 
a great sorrowing cry. But as, later, she stood with her 
feet in the sea, she became silent of a sudden, and was still 25 
as a rock, with her ragged dress about her like draggled 
seaweed. She had heard a thin crying. It was the voice 
of a breast-child, and not of a grown lass like Morag. 

When a gray heron toiled sullenly from a hollow among 
the rocks she went to the place. She was still now, with a 30 
frozen sorrow. She knew what she was going to find. 
But she did not guess till she lifted that little frail child 





74 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


she had left upon the shore seven years back, that the 
secret people of the sea or those who call across running 
water could.have the hardness and coldness to give her 
again the unsmiling dumb thing she had mothered with so 
s much bitterness of heart. 

Morag she never saw again, nor did any other see her, 
except Padruig Macrae, the innocent, who on a New Year’s 
eve, that was a Friday, said that as he was whistling to a 
seal down by the Pool at Srath-na-mara he heard someone 
io laughing at him; and when he looked to see who it was he 
saw it was no other than Morag — and he had called to 
her, he said, and she called back to him, “Come away, 
Padruig dear,” and then had swum off like a seal, crying 
the heavy tears of sorrow. 

15 And as for the child she had found again on the place she 
had left her own silent breast-babe seven years back; it 
never gave a cry or made any sound whatever, but stared 
with round, strange eyes only, and withered away in three 
days, and was hidden by her in a sand-hole at the root of a 
20 stunted thorn that grew there. 

At every going down of the sun thereafter, the mother 
of the changeling went to the edge of the sea, and stood 
among the wet tangle of the wrack 0 , and put out her suppli¬ 
cating hands, but never spoke word nor uttered cry. 

25 But on this night of September, while the gleaming sea- 
fowl were flying through the burning glens of scarlet flame 
in the wide purple wildness of the sky, with the wind fall¬ 
ing and wailing and wailing and falling, the woman went 
over to the running water beyond the seapool, and put her 
30 skirt over her head and stepped into the pool, and, hooded 
thus and thus patient, waited till the tide came in. 

— Fiona Macleod. 


THE PINE-TREE SHILLINGS 

The Captain John Hull aforesaid was the mint-master 
of Massachusetts, and coined all the money that was made 
there. This was a new line of business; for, in the earlier 
days of the colony, the current coinage consisted of gold 
and silver money of England, and Portugal, and Spain. 5 
These coins being scarce, the people were often forced to 
barter their commodities instead of selling them. 

For instance, if a man wanted to buy a coat, he perhaps 
exchanged a bear-skin for it. If he wished for a barrel of 
molasses, he might purchase it with a pile of pine boards. 10 
Musket-bullets were used instead of farthings. The 
Indians had a sort of money, called wampum, which was 
made of clam-shells; and this strange sort of specie was like¬ 
wise taken in payment of debts by the English settlers. 
Bank-bills had never been heard of. There was not money 15 
enough of any kind, in many parts of the country, to pay 
the salaries of the ministers; so that they sometimes had 
to take quintals 0 of fish, .bushels of corn, or cords of wood, 
instead of silver or gold. 

As the people grew more numerous, and their trade one 20 
with another increased, the want of current money was 
still more sensibly felt. To supply the demand, the 
General Court passed a law for establishing a coinage of 
shillings, sixpences, and threepences 0 . Captain John Hull 
was appointed to manufacture this money, and was to 2 0 
75 




76 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


have about one shilling out of every twenty to pay him 
for the trouble of making them. 

Hereupon all the old silver in the colony was handed 
over to Captain John Hull. The battered silver cans and 
5 tankards 0 ,1 suppose, and silver buckles, and broken spoons, 
and silver buttons of wornout coats, and silver hilts of 
swords that had figured at court, — all such curious old 
articles were doubtless thrown into the melting pot to¬ 
gether. But by far the greater part of the silver consisted 
io of bullion 0 from the mines of South America, which the 
English buccaneers 0 — who were little better than pirates 
— had taken from the Spaniards, and brought to Massa¬ 
chusetts. 

All this old and new silver being melted down and 
15 coined, the result was an immense amount of splendid 
shillings, sixpences, and threepences. Each had the 
date, 1652 , on the one side, and the figure of a pine-tree 
on the other. Hence they were called pine-tree shillings. 
And for every twenty shillings that he coined, you will 
20 remember, Captain John Hull was entitled to put one 
shflling into his own pocket. 

The magistrates soon began to suspect that the mint- 
master would have the best of the bargain. They offered 
him a large sum of money if he would but give up the 
25 twentieth shilling which he was continually dropping into 
his own pocket. But Captain Hull declared himself per¬ 
fectly satisfied with the shilling. And well he might be; 
for so diligently did he labor that, in a few years, his 
pockets, his money-bags, and his strong box were over- 
30 flowing with pine-tree shillings. This was probably the 
case when he came into possession of Grandfather’s chair; 
and, as he had worked so hard at the mint, it was cer- 


THE PINE-TREE SHILLINGS 


77 


tainly proper that he should have a comfortable chair to 
rest himself in. 

When the mint-master had grown rich, a young man, 
Samuel Sewell by name, came a-courting to his only daugh¬ 
ter. His daughter — whose name I do not know, but we 5 
w T ill call her Betsey — was a fine, hearty damsel, by no 
means so slender as some young ladies of our own days. 
On the contrary, having always fed heartily on pumpkin- 
pies, doughnuts, Indian puddings, and other Puritan dain¬ 
ties, she was as round, and plump as a pudding herself. 10 
With this round, rosy Miss Betsey did Samuel Sewell 
fall in love. As he was a young man of good character, 
industrious in his business, and a member of the church, 
the mint-master very readily gave his consent. 

“Yes, you may take her,” said he, in his rough way, is 
“and you’ll find her a heavy burden enough!” 

On the wedding day, we may suppose that honest John 
Hull dressed himself in a plum-colored coat, all the buttons 
of which were made of pine-tree shillings. The buttons 
of his waistcoat were sixpences; and the knees of his small- 20 
clothes 0 were buttoned with silver threepences. Thus 
attired, he sat with great dignity in Grandfather’s chair; 
and, being a portly old gentleman, he completely filled it 
from elbow to elbow. On the opposite side of the room, 
between her bridemaids, sat Miss Betsey. She was 25 
blushing with all her might, and looked like a full-blown 
peony, or a great red apple. 

There, too, was the bridegroom, dressed in a fine purple 
coat and gold-lace waistcoat, with as much other finery 
as the Puritan laws and customs would allow him to put 30 
on. His hair was cropped close to his head, because 
Governor Endicott 0 had forbidden any man to wear it 



78 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


below the ears. But he was a very personable young 
man; and so thought the bridemaids and Miss Betsey 
herself. 

The mint-master also was pleased with his new son-in- 
s law; especially as he had courted Miss Betsey out of pure 
love, and had said nothing at all about her portion. So, 
when the marriage ceremony was over, Captain Hull 
whispered a word to two of his men-servants, who im¬ 
mediately went out, and soon returned, lugging in a large 
io pair of scales. There were such a pair as wholesale mer¬ 
chants use for weighing bulky commodities; and quite a 
bulky commodity was now to be weighed in them. 

“Daughter Betsey,” said the mint-master, “get into one 
side of these scales.” 

15 Miss Betsey — or Mrs. Sewqll, as we must now call 
her — did as she was bid, like a dutiful child, without any 
question of the why and wherefore. But what her father 
could mean, unless to make her husband pay for' her by 
the pound (in which case she would have been a dear bar- 
20 gain), she had not the least idea. 

“And now,” said honest John Hull to the servants, 
“bring that box hither.” 

The box to which the mint-master pointed was a huge 
square, iron-bound, oaken chest; it was big enough, my 
25 children, for all four of you to play hide-and-seek in. The 
servants tugged with might and main, but could not iift 
this enormous receptacle, and were finally obliged to drag 
it across the floor. Captain Hull then took a key from his 
girdle, unlocked the chest, and lifted its ponderous lid. 
30 Behold! it was full to the brim of bright pine-tree shillings, 
fresh from the mint; and Samuel Sewell began to think 
that his father-in-law had got possession of all the money 


THE PINE-TREE SHILLINGS 


79 


in the Massachusetts treasury. But it was only the mint- 
master’s honest share of the coinage. 

Then the servants, at Captain Hull’s command, heaped 
double handfuls of shillings into one side of the scales, 
while Betsey remained in the other. Jingle, jingle, went 5 
the shillings, as handful after handful was thrown in, till, 
plump and ponderous as she was, they fairly weighed the 
young lady from the floor. 

“There, son Sewell!” cried the honest mint-master, 
resuming his seat in Grandfather’s chair, “take theseshil-10 
lings for my daughter’s portion. Use her kindly, and thank 
Heaven for her. It is not every wife that’s worth her 
weight in silver!” 

— Nathaniel Hawthorne. 




THE WHITE TRAIL 


For the space of nearly ten weeks these people travelled 
thus in the region of the Kabinikagam. Sometimes they 
made long marches; sometimes they camped for the 
hunting; sometimes the great, fierce storms of the north 
s drove them to shelter, snowed them under, and passed 
on shrieking. The wind opposed them. At first of little 
account, its very insistence gave it value. Always the 
stinging snow whirling into the face; always the eyes 
watering and smarting; always the unyielding opposition 
io against which to bend the head; always the rush of sound 
in the ears, — a distraction against which the senses had 
to struggle before they could take their needed cognisance 
of trail and of game. An uneasiness was abroad with the 
wind, an uneasiness that infected the men, the dogs, the 
is forest creatures, the very insentient trees themselves. 
It racked the* nerves. In it the inimical Spirit of 
the North seemed to find its plainest symbol; though 
many difficulties she cast in the way were greater to 
be overcome. 

20 Ever the days grew shorter. The sun swung above the 
horizon, low to the south, and dipped , back as though 
pulled by some invisible string. Slanting through the 
trees it gave little cheer and no warmth. Early in the 
afternoon it sank, silhouetting the pointed firs, casting 
25 across the snow long, crimson shadows, which faded into 

80 



THE WHITE TRAIL 


81 


gray. It was replaced by a moon, chill and remote, dead 
as the white world on which it looked. 

In the great frost continually the trees were splitting 
with loud, sudden reports. The cold had long since 
squeezed the last drops of moisture from the atmosphere. 5 
It was metallic, clear, hard as ice, brilliant as the stars, 
compressed with the freezing. The moon, the stars, the 
earth, the very heavens glistened like polished steel. 
Frost lay on the land thick as a coverlid. It hid the east 
like clouds of smoke. Snow remained unmelted two feet 10 
from the camp-fire. 

And the fire alone saved these people from the enemy. 

If Sam stooped for a moment to adjust his snow-shoe strap, 
he straightened his back with a certain reluctance, — al¬ 
ready the benumbing preliminary to freezing had begun. 15 
If Dick, flipping his mitten from his hand to light his pipe, 
did not catch the fire at the second tug, he had to resume 
the mitten and beat the circulation into his hand before 
renewing the attempt, lest the ends of his fingers become 
frosted. Movement, always and incessantly, movement 20 
alone could keep going the vital forces on these few coldest 
days until the fire had been built to fight back the white 
death. 

It was the land of ghosts. Except for the few hours at 
midday these people moved in the gloom and shadow of a 25 
nether world. The long twilight was succeeded by longer 
night, with its burnished stars, its dead moon, its unearthly 
aurora. On the fresh snow were the tracks of creatures, 
but in the flesh they glided almost invisible. The ptarmi¬ 
gan’s 0 bead eye alone betrayed him, he had no outline. 30 
The ermine’s black tip was the only indication of his 
presence. Even the larger animals — the caribou, the 

G 



82 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 

moose — had either turned a dull gray, or were so rimed 
by the frost as to have lost all appearance of solidity. It 
was ever a surprise to find these phantoms red, to discover 
that their flesh would resist the knife. During the strife 
5 of the heavy northwest storms one side of each tree had 
become more or less plastered with snow, so that even their 
dark trunks flashed mysteriously into and out of view. In 
the entire world of the great white silence the only solid, 
enduring, palpable reality was the tiny sledge train crawling 
io with infinite patience across its vastness. 

White space, a feeling of littleness and impotence, twi¬ 
light gloom, burnished night, bitter cold, unreality, phan¬ 
tasmagoria 0 , ghosts like those which surged about ^Eneas 0 , 
and finally clogging, white silence, — these were the simple 
15 but dreadful elements of that journey which lasted, without 
event, from the middle of November until the latter part 
of January. 


— Stewart Edward White. 


A DISSERTATION ON ROAST PIG 

Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend 
f M. was obliging enough to read and explain to me, for the 
* first seventy thousand ages ate their meat raw, clawing 
1 it or biting it from the living animal, just as they do 
in Abyssinia to this day. This period is not obscurely 5 

( hinted at by their great Confucius 0 in the second chapter 
of his Mundane Mutations, where he designates a kind of 
golden age by the term Cho-fang, literally the Cooks’ 
holiday. 

The manuscript goes on to say, that the art of roasting, 10 
or rather broiling (which I take to be the elder brother) 
was accidentally discovered in the manner following. 
The swineherd, Ho-ti, having gone out into the woods 
one morning, as his manner was, to collect mast° for his 
I hogs, left his cottage in the care of his eldest son Bo-bo, 15 
* a great lubberly boy, who being fond of playing with fire, 
l as younkers 0 of his age commonly are, let some sparks es¬ 
cape into a bundle of straw, which kindling quickly, spread 
the conflagration over every part of their poor mansion, 
till it was reduced to ashes. Together with the cottage 20 
(a sorry antediluvian makeshift of a building, you may 
think it), what was of much more importance, a fine litter 
of young pigs, no less than nine in number, perished. 
China pigs° have been esteemed a luxury all over the East 
from the remotest periods that we read of. 

83 


25 


84 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


Bo-bo was in the utmost consternation, as you may 
think, not so much for the sake of the tenement, which his 
father and he could easily build up again with a few dry 
branches, and the labor of an hour or two, at any time, as 
s for the loss of the pigs. While he was thinking what he 
should say to his father, and wringing his hands over the 
smoking remnants of one of those untimely sufferers, an odor 
assailed his nostrils, unlike any scent which he had before 
experienced. 

io What could it proceed from ? — not from the burnt cot¬ 
tage — he had smelled that smell before — indeed this 
was by no means the first accident of the kind which had 
occurred through the negligence of this unlucky young 
firebrand. Much less did it resemble that of any known 
is herb, weed, or flower. A premonitory moistening at the 
same time overflowed his nether lip. He knew not what 
to think. 

He next stooped down to feel the pig, if there were any 
signs of life in it. He burned his fingers, and to cool them 
20 he applied them in his booby fashion to his mouth. Some 
of the crumbs of the scorched skin had come away with 
his fingers, and for the first time in his life (in the world’s 
life indeed, for before him no man had known it) he tasted 
— crackling ! 0 Again he felt and fumbled at the pig. 
25 It did not burn him so much now, still he licked his fingers 
from a sort of habit. 

The truth at length broke into his slow understanding, 
that it was the pig that smelt so, and the pig that tasted so 
delicious; and, surrendering himself to the newborn pleasure, 
30 he fell to tearing whole handfuls of the scorched skin with 
the flesh next it, and was cramming it down his throat 
in his beastly fashion, when his sire entered amid the 


A DISSERTATION ON ROAST PIG 


85 


smoking rafters, armed with retributory cudgel, and 
finding how affairs stood, began to rain blows upon the 
young rogue’s shoulders, as thick as hailstones, which 
Bo-bo heeded not any more than if they had been flies. 
The tickling pleasure which he experienced in his lowers 
regions, had rendered him quite callous to any inconven¬ 
iences he might feel in those remote quarters. 

His father might lay on, but he could not beat him from 
his pig, till he had fairly made an end of it, when, becoming 
a little more sensible of his situation, something like the io 
following dialogue ensued : — 

“You graceless fellow, what have you got there devour¬ 
ing? Is it not enough that you have burned down three 
houses with your dog’s tricks, but you must be eating 
fire and I know not what — what have you got there, 115 
say?” 

“0 father, the pig, the pig, do come and taste how nice 
the burnt pig eats.” 

The ears of Ho-ti tingled with horror. He cursed his 
son, and he cursed himself that ever he should have a son 20 
that should eat burnt pig. 

Bo-bo, whose scent was wonderfully sharpened since 
morning, soon raked out another pig, and fairly rending 
it asunder, thrust the lesser half by main force into the 
fists of Ho-ti, still shouting out, “ Eat, eat, eat the burnt 25 
pig, father, only taste,” — with such like ejaculations, 
cramming all the while as if he would choke. 

Ho-ti trembled in every joint while he grasped the 
abominable thing, wavering whether he should not put 
his son to death for an unnatural young monster, when 50 
the crackling scorching his fingers, as it had done his son’s, 
and applying the same remedy to them, he in his turn 


86 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


tasted some of its flavor, which, make what sour mouths 
he would for a pretence, proved not altogether displeasing 
to him. In conclusion (for the manuscript here is a little 
tedious) both father and son fairly sat down to the mess, 

5 and never left off till they despatched all that remained of 
the litter. 

Bo-bo was strictly enjoined not to let the secret escape, 
for the neighbors would certainly have stoned them for a 
couple of abominable wretches, who could think of im- 
io proving upon the good meat God had sent them, Never¬ 
theless, strange stories got about. It was observed that 
Ho-ti’s cottage was burned down now more frequently 
than ever. 

Nothing but fires from this time forward. Some would 
15 break out in broad day, others in the night-time. And 
Ho-ti himself, which was the more remarkable, instead of 
chastising his son, seemed to grow more indulgent to him 
than ever. 

At length they were watched, the terrible mystery dis- 
20 covered, and father and son summoned to take their trial 
at Pekin, then an inconsiderable assize town 0 . Evidence 
was given, the obnoxious food itself produced in court, and 
verdict about to be pronounced, when the foreman of the 
jury begged that some of the burnt pig, of which the 
25 culprits stood accused, might be handed into the box. 

He handled it, and they all handled it, and burning 
their fingers, as Bo-bo and his father had done before them, 
and nature prompting to each of them the same remedy, 
against the face of all the facts, and the clearest charge 
30 which the judge had ever given, — to the surprise of the 
whole court, townsfolk, strangers, reporters, and all 
present — without leaving the box, or any manner of con- 



A DISSERTATION ON ROAST PIG 


87 


sultation whatever, they brought in a simultaneous verdict 
of Not Guilty. 

The judge, who was a shrewd fellow, winked at the mani¬ 
fest iniquity of the decision; and when the court was dis¬ 
missed, went privily, and bought up all the pigs that could 5 
be had for love or money. In a few days his Lordship’s 
town house was observed to be on fire. The thing took 
wing, and now there was nothing to be seen but fires in 
every direction. Fuel and pigs grew enormously dear 
all over the district. The insurance offices one and all io 
shut up shop. People built slighter and slighter every day, 
until it was feared that the very science of architecture 
would in no long time be lost to the world. 

Thus this custom of firing houses continued, till in pro¬ 
cess of time, says my manuscript, a sage arose, like our 15 
Locke 0 , who made a discovery, that flesh of swine, or in¬ 
deed of any other animal, might be cooked (burnt, as they 
Called it) without the necessity of consuming a whole 
house to dress it. Then first began the rude form of a 
gridiron. 20 

Roasting by the string, or spit, came in a century or two 
later, I forget in whose dynasty. By such slow degrees, 
concludes the manuscript, do the most useful, and seem¬ 
ingly the most obvious arts, make their way among man¬ 
kind. 


— Charles Lamb. 


25 


THE LAST CLASS 


I was very late for school that morning, and I was afraid 
of being scolded, especially as Monsieur Hamel had told 
us that he should examine us on participles, and I did not 
know the first thing about them . For a moment I thought 
5 of staying away from school and wandering about the 
fields. It was such a warm, lovely day. I could hear the 
blackbirds whistling on the edge of the wood, and in the 
Rippert field, behind the sawmill, the Prussians going 
through their drill 0 . All that was much more tempting 
io to me than the rules concerning participles; but I had the 
strength to resist, and I ran as fast as I could to school. 

As I passed the Mayor’s office, I saw that there were 
people gathered about the little board on which notices 
were posted. For two years all our bad news had come 
is from that board — battles lost, conscriptions 0 , orders from 
headquarters; and I thought without stopping: 

“What can it be now?” 

Then, as I ran across the square, Wachter the black¬ 
smith, who stood there with his apprentice, reading the 
20 placard, called out to me : 

“Don’t hurry so, my boy; you’ll get to your school 
soon enough! ” 

I thought that he was making fun of me, and I ran into 
Monsieur Hamel’s little yard all out of breath. 

2s Usually, at the beginning of school, there was a great 

88 


THE LAST CLASS 


89 


uproar which could be heard in the street, desks opening 
and closing, lessons repeated aloud in unison, with our 
ears stuffed in order to learn quicker, and the teacher’s 
stout ruler beating on the desk: 

“ A little more quiet! ” 5 

I counted on all this noise to reach my bench unnoticed, 
but as it happened, that day everything was quiet, like a 
Sunday morning. Through the open window I saw my 
comrades already in their places, and Monsieur Hamel 
walking back and forth with the terrible iron ruler under io 
his arm. I had to open the door and enter, in the midst 
of that perfect silence. You can imagine whether I 
blushed and whether I was afraid! 

But no! Monsieur Hamel looked at me with no sign of 
anger and said very gently: is 

“Go at once to your seat, my little Frantz; we were 
going to begin without you.” 

I stepped over the bench and sat down at once > at my 
desk. Not until then, when I had partly recovered from 
my fright, did I notice that our teacher had on his hand- 20 
some blue coat, his plaited ruff, and the black embroidered 
breeches, which he wore on days of inspection or of distri¬ 
bution of prizes. Moreover, there was something ex¬ 
traordinary, something solemn about the whole class. But 
what surprised me most was to see at the back of the room, 25 
on the benches which were usually empty, some people 
from the village sitting, as silent as we were: old Hauser 
with his three-cornered hat, the ex-mayor, the ex-postman, 
and others besides. They all seemed depressed; and 
Hauser had brought an old spelling-book with gnawed 30 
edges, which he held wide-open on his knee, with his great 
spectacles askew. 


90 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


While I was wondering at all this, Monsieur Hamel had 
mounted his platform, and in the same gentle and serious 
voice with which he had welcomed me, he said to us: 

“My children, this is the last time that I shall teach you. 
s Orders have come from Berlin to teach nothing but German 
in the schools of Alsace and Lorraine. The new teacher 
arrives to-morrow. This is the last class in French, so 
I beg you to be very attentive.” 

Those few words overwhelmed me. Ah! the villains! 
io that was what they had posted at the mayor’s office. 

My last class in French! 

And I barely knew how to write! So I should never 
learn! I must stop short where I was! How angry I 
was with myself because of the time I had wasted, the 
15 lessons I had missed, running about after nests, or sliding 
on the Saar 0 ! My books, which only a moment before I 
thought so tiresome, so heavy to carry — my grammar, 
my sacred history — seemed to me now like old friends, 
from whom I should be terribly grieved to part. And it 
20 was the same about Monsieur Hamel. The thought that 
he was going away, that I should never see him again, made 
me forget the punishments, the blows with the ruler. 

Poor man! It was in honor of that last lesson that he 
had put on his fine Sunday clothes; and I understood now 
25 why those old fellows from the village were sitting at the 
end of the room. It seemed to mean that they regretted 
not having come oftener to the school. It was also a way of 
thanking our teacher for his forty years of faithful service, 
and of paying their respects to the fatherland which was 
30 vanishing. 

I was at that point in my reflections, when I heard my 
name called. It was my turn to recite. What would I 


THE LAST CLASS 


91 


not have given to be able to say from the beginning to the 
end that famous rule about participles, in a loud, distinct 
voice, without a slip! But I got mixed up at the first' 
words, and I stood there swaying against my bench, with 
a full heart, afraid to raise my head. I heard Monsieur 5 
Hamel speaking to me: 

“I will not scold you, my little Frantz; you must be 
punished enough; that is the way it goes; every day we 
say to ourselves: ‘Pshaw! I have time enough. I will 
learn to-morrow/ And then you see what happens. 10 
Ah! it has been the great misfortune of our Alsace always 
to postpone its lessons until to-morrow. ‘What! you 
claim to be French, and you can neither speak nor write 
your language! ’ In all this, my poor Frantz,, you are 
not the guiltiest one. We all have our fair share of re- 15 
proaches to address to ourselves. 

“Your parents have not been careful enough to see that 
you. were educated. They preferred to send you to work 
in the fields or in the factories, in order to have a few more 
sous. And have I nothing to reproach myself for? Have 20 
I not often made you water my garden instead of studying ? 
And when I wanted to go fishing for trout, have I ever 
hesitated to dismiss you?” 

Then passing from one thing to another, Monsieur 
Hamel began to talk to us about the French language, 25 
saying that it was the most beautiful language in the world, 
the most clear, the most substantial; that we must always 
retain it among ourselves, and never forget it, because 
when a people falls into servitude, “so long as it clings 
to its language, it is as if it held the key to its prison.” 30 
Then he took the grammar and read us our lesson. I was 
amazed to see how readily I understood. Everything 


92 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


that he said seemed so easy to me, so easy. I believed, 
too, that I had never listened so closely, and that he, for 
his part, had never been so patient with his explanations. 
One would have said that, before going away, the poor 
s man desired to give us all his knowledge, to force it all into 
our heads at a single blow. 

When the lesson was at an end, we passed to writing. 
For that day Monsieur Hamel had prepared some entirely 
new examples, on which was written in a fine, round hand: 
10“France, Alsace, France, Alsace.” They were like little 
flags, waving all about the class, hanging from the rods of 
our desks. You should have seen how hard we all worked 
and how silent it was! Nothing could be heard save the 
grinding of the pens over the paper. At one time some 
is cockchafers 0 flew in; but no one paid any attention to them 
not even the little fellows, who were struggling with their 
straight lines, with a will and conscientious application, 
as if even the lines were French. On the roof of the school- 
house, pigeons cooed in low tones, and I said to myself as 
201 listened to them: 

“I wonder if they are going to compel them to sing 
German too! ” 

From time to time, when I raised my eyes from my 
paper, I saw Monsieur Hamel sitting motionless in his 
2s chair and staring at the objects about him as if he wished 
to carry away in his glance the whole of his little school- 
house. Think of it! For forty years he had been there 
in the same place, with his yard in front of him and his 
class just as it was! But the benches and desks were 
30 polished and rubbed by use; the walnuts in the yard had 
grown, and the hop-vine which he himself had planted now 
festooned the windows even to the roof. What a heart- 


THE LAST CLASS 


93 


rending thing it must have been for that poor man to leave 
all those things, and to hear his sister walking back and 
forth in the room overhead, packing their trunks! For 
they were to go away the next day — to leave the province 
forever. s 

However, he had the courage to keep the class to the end. 
After the writing, we had the lesson in history; then the 
little ones sang all together the ba, be, bi, bo, bu. Yonder, 
at the back of the room, old Hauser had put on his specta¬ 
cles, and, holding his spelling-book in both hands, he spelled IO 
out the letters with them. I could see that he too was 
applying himself. His voice shook with emotion, and it 
was so funny to hear him, that we all longed to laugh and to 
cry. Ah! I shall remember that last class. 

Suddenly the church struck twelve, then the Angelus 0 I5 
rang. At the same moment, the bugles of the Prussians 
returning from drill blared under our windows. Monsieur 
Hamel rose, pale as death, from his chair. Never had he 
seemed to me so tall. 

“My friends,” he said,“my friends, I — I —” 2Q 

But something suffocated him. He could not finish 
the sentence. 

Thereupon he turned to the blackboard, took a piece 
of chalk, and, bearing on with all his might, he wrote in 
the largest letters he could: 2S 

“Vive La France!°” 

Then he stood there with his head resting against the 
wall, and without speaking, he motioned to us with his 
hand: 

“That is all ; go.” ao 

— Alphonse Daudet. 


AN ARAB FISHERMAN 


This morning I reached the rocks before the dawn had 
begun to break. It was too dark to fish; but I crept out 
to the very edge of the ledge, and sat down beside a great 
boulder to wait for the light. I lit my pipe and smoked 
5 impatiently. It seemed as though the dawn came up out 
of the water itself; long before I could notice any increase 
of light the waves began to change color from the dark, 
oily olive tint of night to a lighter green, and gradually, 
just as it began to dawn, to their daytime blue. A long 
io trailing cloud, which stretched clean across the sky like an 
exaggerated Milky Way, suddenly caught fire at its eastern 
end. Rapidly the red flame along ran its entire length to 
the other horizon. Then countless unexpected shadows 
woke up on the rocks about me, weird, undefined shapes, 
is which became clear-cut only when the rim of the sun came 
up over Cap Rouge. 

But a swish in the water beside me, as the first fish rose, 
recalled me to the business in hand. I opened my little 
tin tackle-box, put the rod together, and just as I was tying 
20 on the flies I was disturbed by human voices. I said several 
things I shouldn’t have, and looked up over my rock to 
motion back the intruders. For a moment I thought I 
was back in Old Greece, the Old Greece where early morn¬ 
ing fishers were often interrupted by the sea-nymphs. 
25 But a second glance reassured me — it was only an Arab 
and his wife hunting crabs. 


94 


AN ARAB FISHERMAN 


95 


Their method was typical. He was a sombre old chap, 
with long, scanty white beard, a soiled burnous 0 , and thin, 
scrawny brown legs. He sat stolidly on a dry rock, a 
basket under his feet, and — this was the typical part — 
watched his wife work. I did not blame him for watching. 5 
It was a pretty sight. She was a supple young Mau- 
resque 0 , slim and graceful as the water-nymph for whom I 
had first mistaken her. She had laid aside her outer cloak¬ 
like garment, and was clad only in a light cotton tunic. It 
was very simple affair — two small holes for her arms, a 10 
bigger one for her head, and a still bigger one at the bottom 
to get in by. I could make one myself. It was bound 
about her waist with a heavy dark red woollen sash, the 
ends of which, hanging down at her side, were adorned 
with a most amazing collection of colored strings, bright 15 
yellow, startling orange, pale blue, and flaming crimson. 

It sounds discordant, and I must admit that, as it hangs 
now in my room, it almost makes my head ache. But 
out there on the red, wet rocks it was toned down by the 
faint morning light, and mingled charmingly with the 20 
greens on the bank and the far-reaching blue of the sea. 

In her hand was a spear — a stick sharpened in a fire. 

If the old gentleman took it sedately and placidly, it 
was just the reverse with her. She was fairly running over 
with the joy of life. She would crawl about deftly until 25 
she saw a crab, then she would make a long detour to get 
it between her and the sun, so that her shadow should not 
frighten it. When she got within striking distance, she 
would wave her hand at her husband, as though she 
thought he could increase the intensity of his silence. 30 
With a graceful, dextrous thrust she would stab her game, 
and, gathering up her scant skirts, she would dash into the 


96 


SHORT STORIES A HD SELECTIONS 


water after it. The moment she got her hand on it she 
would let out a delighted little scream of glee, and go 
bounding over the rocks to exhibit it to her lord and mas¬ 
ter. I wanted to wring his scrawny old neck for not being 
5 more enthusiastic about it. But he never once lost his 
blas6 manner. He would look at the crab a moment criti¬ 
cally, then lift up his foot and let her put it in the basket. 
Not a word would he say. But off she would go again with 
undimmed ardor. It was a sight for the gods. And for 
io half an hour I forgot all about my fishing-rod. 

At last their basket was full, and the old man got up and 
began to come my way. She picked up her mantle and the 
basket and followed him. They saw me at the same 
moment. She gave a startled little squeal and started to 
is retreat; but the old man grunted “ Roumi,” so she stopped. 

“Roumi,” being translated, means “Infidel.” It was 
as though he had said, “ Don’t get excited; it is only a 
dog.” If I had been a Mussulman, she would have run 
screaming to the woods, and would have had to do — I 
20 don’t know what penance — because I had seen her face 
unveiled. But I was only an infidel dog and didn’t count. 
The old man made the “Sign of Peace,” and the two sat 
down beside me. 

I didn’t return his salute. I had never felt so entirely, 
2s so shamefully insulted in my life. I have always read a 
deep contempt for me in the eyes of the Mussulmans I have 
met. The Arab boy who cleans my boots and cares for 
“Citron,” my mare, looks down on me from a perfectly 
unspeakable height of superiority. The men do not 
30 matter, but to be insulted so by a woman, a very pretty 
woman, made my hair crinkle! I had heard that the Mo¬ 
hammedan women do not veil before the infidels. But I 


AN ARAB FISHERMAN 


97 


had never realized the overpowering weight of the insult 
before. She would have been utterly confused if an Arab 
had seen her face. She sat there before me, almost within 
reach of my hand, in a thin, short, very short, tunic, which 
was wet, and she, never turned a hair. I was a “Roumi,” 5 
not a man, a dog. That was all there was to it. I felt 
that unless I could shake her composure I would explode. 

I tried to convince her I was a man by staring at her. I 
' might just as well have tried to embarrass the statue of 
Venus de Milo! 10 

“Bonjour,” 0 the old man said. He had probably 
learned French working for a colonist; or perhaps he had 
served in the Spahis 0 when he was younger. I was too mad 
to return his greeting. 

“Fishing?” he asked. 15 

Such insane questions, when the answer is so evident, 
generally infuriate me; and I probably would have told 
him I was skating if I had not been afraid he would get 
mad and walk off with his wife, and I had not yet given 
up hope of embarrassing her. 20 

“Yes,” I replied. “And you?” 

“I’ve been crab-fishing,” he said solemnly, and he 
showed me his basket. “I’m a good fisher,” he added. 

I looked at his wife, but she did not seem to see anything 
funny in his choice of pronouns. I tied another fly on my 25 
leader. 

“No good,” he said. “Use crab meat. Fish don’t 
like feathers.” 

I made a couple of casts without making a strike. “No 
good ! ” he kept repeating. He began to get on my nerves. 30 
At last I had better luck and lailded a beautiful three- 
pounder. I dangled it triumphantly before his eyes. 


98 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


ft No good,” he said stolidly. “Use crab meat. Fish 
don’t like feathers.” 

Then I had a run of luck. Almost every cast I got a 
rise, and soon I had a nice string of eight, all from two to 
s five pounds. I noticed that all the strikes had been on 
the same fly, so I stopped for a minute to change the other 
two flies to this variety. I thought that if I should have 
the luck to raise two at once — as sometimes happens — 
I might convince him. When I opened the box to get the 
io new flies, both of them came close to look in. In one com¬ 
partment were some bare hooks on which I had not yet 
built flies. The old man pounced on them at once. 

“There!” he cried. “These are good. Use these with 
crab meat and you will catch fish!” 

15 I sat back in dumb amazement. Once upon a time, way 
back in the dimness before history, this chap’s ancestors 
had begun to fish off these rocks with a bent wire and a 
piece of crab meat. Century after century they had sat 
there unchanging. Sat there all day long, and had been 
20 lucky to catch half as many fish as I had done in fifteen 
minutes. And glaring ocular demonstration did not 
shake his faith in the methods of his ancestors. I began 
to understand the hopeless discouragement with which 
my host talks of the “Native Question.” The Arabs 
25 are starving off because the French have stolen their land. 
But the fact remains that most of the natives have more 
land than the colonists. An Arab will starve to death on 
a piece of land which will support two French families, 
simply because the Arabs do not know — and will not 
30 learn — how to intensify their culture. Somehow — no¬ 
body knows just how —the Romans, during the long 
centuries of their occupation, succeeded in teaching them 



AN ARAB FISHERMAN 


99 


to put an iron point on the end of the crooked stick with 
which they scratch the earth. It is the last thing they 
have learned. 

The Arabs employed by my host are good workmen. 
They seem perfectly intelligent; six days a week they5 
yoke his stout oxen before a great American plow, turn 
his soil, scatter his fertilizer, after the harvest help him 
sort out the best grain for the next sowing, and so forth; 
but the seventh day of the week they hitch their wives be¬ 
side an ass, and tickle the soil with their iron-pointed stick. 10 
“Why should we put on fertilizer?” they ask. “Allah, 
the Just, will give us the harvest our piety deserves.” 

My speculations about the fate of the race were inter¬ 
rupted by the voice of the young woman. Her eye had 
been caught by a gaudy red-feathered trolling-spoon and 15 
its polished brass disk. She pointed to it, and said some¬ 
thing in Arabic. The old man shook his head. 

“No good,” he repeated his deadly refrain. 

“Use these. Crab meat. You will catch fish. Fish 
don’t like feathers.” 20 

But I’d lost interest in fishing. I realized that if I pulled 
up Jonah’s whale it would not convince the old man. So 
I started to put up my things. 


— Albert Edwards. 


THE ARCHERY CONTEST 


At the beginning of the contest a stranger appears to take part 
in the shooting. He tells Prince John that his name is Locksley. 

A target was placed at the upper end of the southern 
avenue which led to the lists 0 . The contending archers 
took their station in turn, at the bottom of the southern 
access, the distance between that station and the mark 
5 allowing full distance for what was called a shot at rovers. 
The archers, having previously determined by lot their 
order of precedence, were to shoot each three shafts in 
succession. The sports were regulated by an officer of 
inferior rank, termed the Provost of the Games; for the 
io high rank of the marshals of the lists would have been held 
degraded, had they condescended to superintend the 
sports of the yeomanry. 0 

One by one the archers, stepping forward, delivered their 
shafts yeomanlike and bravely. Of twenty-four arrows, 
15 shot in succession, ten were fixed in the target, and the 
others ranged so near it, that, considering the distance of 
the mark, it was accounted good archery. Of the ten 
shafts which hit the target, two within the inner ring were 
shot'by Hubert, a forester in the service of Malvoisin, 
20 who was accordingly pronounced victorious. 

“Now, Locksley 0 ,” said Prince John 0 to the bold yeoman 
with a bitter smile, “wilt thou try conclusions with Hubert, 
or wilt thou yield up bow, baldric 0 , and quiver, to the Pro¬ 
vost of the sports?” 


100 




THE ARCHERY CONTEST 


101 


“Sith it be no better/ 7 said Locksley, “I am content to 
try my fortune; on condition that when I have shot two 
shafts at yonder mark of Hubert’s he shall be bound to shoot 
at that which I shall propose.” 

“That is but fair,” answered Prince John, “and it shall 5 
not be refused thee. If thou dost beat this braggart, 
Hubert, I will fill the bugle with silver-pennies for thee.” 

“A man can do but his best,” answered Hubert; “but 
my grandsire drew a good long bow at Hastings, and I 
trust not to dishonor his memory.” 10 

The former target was now removed, and a fresh one of 
the same size placed in its room. Hubert, who, as victor 
in the first trial of skill, had the right to shoot first, took his 
aim with great deliberation, long measuring the distance 
with his eye, while he held in his hand his bended bow, 15 
with the arrow placed on the string. At length he made 
a step forward, and raising the bow at the full stretch 
of his left arm, till the centre or grasping-place was nigh 
level with his face, he drew his bowstring to his ear. The 
arrow whistled through the air, and lighted within the inner 20 
ring of the target, but not exactly in the centre. 

“You have not allowed for the wind, Hubert,” said his 
antagonist, bending his bow, “or that had been a better 
shot.” 

So saying, and without showing the least anxiety to pause 25 
upon his aim, Locksley stept to the appointed station, 
and shotdns arrow as carelessly in appearance as if he had 
not even looked at the mark. He was speaking almost at 
the instant that the shaft left the bowstring, yet it alighted 
in the target two inches nearer to the white spot which 30 
marked the centre than that of Hubert. • 

“By the light of heaven!” said Prince John to Hubert, 


102 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 

“an’ thou suffer that runagate knave to overcome thee, 
thou art worthy of the gallows!” 

Hubert had but one set speech for all occasions. 

“An’ your highness were to hang me,” he said, “a 
S man can do but his best. Nevertheless, my grandsire drew . 
a good bow” — 

“ The foul fiend on thy grandsire and all his generation! ” 1 
interrupted John, “shoot, knave, and shoot thy best, or it 
shall be the worse for thee! ” 

io Thus exhorted, Hubert resumed his place, and not 
neglecting, he made the necessary allowance for a very 
light air of wind, which had just arisen, and shot so success¬ 
fully that his arrow alighted in the very centre of the target. 

“A Hubert!” shouted the populace, more interested 
is in a known person than in a stranger. “ In the clout! — in 
the clout! — a Hubert for ever! ” 

“Thou canst not mend that shot, Locksley,” said the 
Prince, with an insulting smile. 

“I will notch his shaft for him, however,” replied Locks- 
20 ley. 

And letting fly his arrow with a little more precaution 
than before, it lighted right upon that of his competitor, 
which it split to shivers. The people who stood around 
were so astonished at his wonderful dexterity, that they 
25 could not even give vent to their surprise in their usual 
clamor. “This must be the devil, and no man of flesh 
. and blood,” whispered the yeomen to each other; “such 
archery was never seen since a bow was first bent in 
Britain.” 

30 “And now,” said Locksley, “I will crave your Grace’s 
permission to plant such a mark as is used in the North 
Country; and welcome every brave yeoman who shall 


THE ARCHERY CONTEST 


103 


try a shot at it to win a smile from the bonny lass he loves 
best.” 

He then turned to leave the lists. “Let your guards 
attend me,” he said, “if you please — I go but to cut a 
rod from the next willow-bush.” s 

Prince John made a signal that some attendants should 
follow him in case of his escape: but the cry of “Shame! 
shame!” which burst from the multitude, induced him to 
alter his ungenerous purpose. 

Locksley returned almost instantly with a willow wand io 
about six feet in length, perfectly straight, and rather 
thicker than a man’s thumb. He began to peel this with 
great composure, observing at the same time, that to ask 
a good woodsman to shoot at a target so broad as had 
hitherto been used, was to put shame upon his skill. “For 15 
his own part,” he said, “and in the land where he was 
bred, men would as soon take for their mark King Arthur’s 
round-table 0 , which held sixty knights around it. A child 
of seven years old,” he said, “might hit yonder target with 
a headless shaft; but,” added he, walking deliberately to 20 
the other end of the lists, and sticking the willow wand 
upright in the ground, “he that hits that rod at five-score 
yards, I call him an archer fit to bear both bow and quiver 
before a king, an it were the stout King Richard him¬ 
self.” . . 25 

“My grandsire,” said Hubert, “drew a good bow at the 
battle of Hastings, and never shot at such a mark in his life, 

— and neither will I. If this yeoman can cleave that rod, 

I give him the bucklers — or rather I yield to the devil 
that is in his jerkin, and not to any human skill; a man can 30 
but do his best, and I will not shoot where I am sure to miss. 

I might as well shoot at the edge of our parson’s whittle, 


104 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 

or at a wheat straw, or at a sunbeam, as at a twinkling 
white streak which I can hardly see.” 

“Cowardly dog!” said Prince John. — “Sirrah Locks- 
ley, do thou shoot, but, if thou hittest such a mark, I will 
5 say thou art the first man ever did so. Howe’er it be, 
thou shalt not crow over us with a mere show of superior 
skill.” 

“I will do my best, as Hubert says,” answered Locksley, 
“No man can do more.” 

10 So saying, he again bent his bow, but on the present 
occasion looked with attention to his weapon, and changed 
the string, which he thought was no longer truly m round, 
having been a little frayed by the two former shots. He 
then took his aim with some deliberation, and the multi- 
*5 tude awaited the event in breathless silence. The archer 
vindicated their opinion of his skill: his arrow split the 
wallow rod against which it was aimed. A jubilee of accla¬ 
mations followed; and even Prince John, in admiration 
of Locksley’s skill, lost for an instant his dislike to his 
20person. “These twenty nobles 0 ,” he said, “which, with 
the bugle, thou hast fairly won, are thine owm; we wall 
make them fifty, if thou wilt take livery and service wdth us 
as a yeoman of our bodyguard, and be near to our person. 
For never did so strong a hand bend a bow, or so true an 
2 5 eye direct a shaft.” 

“Pardon me, noble Prince,” said Locksley; “but I 
have vowed, that if ever I take service, it should be with 
your royal brother King Richard 0 . These twenty nobles 
I leave to Hubert, who has this day drawn as brave a bow 
30 as his grandsire did at Hastings. Had his modesty not 
refused the trial, he w T ould have hit the wand as well 
as I.” 



THE ARCHERY CONTEST 


105 


Hubert shook his head as he received with reluctance the 
bounty of the stranger, and Locksley, anxious to escape 
further observation, mixed with the crowd, and was seen 
no more. 


— Walter Scott. 


BABY SYLVESTER 


(The writer has taken up temporary quarters in the cabin of his 
friend Sylvester, a California miner). 

I do not remember how long I slept. I must have been 
conscious, however, during my slumber, of my inability 
to keep myself covered by the serape 0 , for I awoke once 
or twice clutching it with a despairing hand as it was dis- 
5 appearing over the foot of the couch. Then I became sud¬ 
denly aroused to the fact that my efforts to retain it were 
resisted by some equally persistent force, and letting it 
go, I was horrified at seeing it swiftly drawn under the 
couch. At this point I sat up, completely awake; for 
IO immediately after, what seemed to be an exaggerated muff 
began to emerge from under the couch. Presently it ap¬ 
peared fully, dragging the serape after it. There was no 
mistaking it now — it was a baby bear. A mere suckling, 
it was true — a helpless roll of fat and fur — but unmis- 
I5 takably, a grizzly cub! 

I cannot recall anything more irresistibly ludicrous than 
its aspect as it slowly raised its small wondering eyes 
to mine. It was so much taller in its haunches than its 
shoulders — its fore legs were so disproportionately small 
20 — that in walking, its hind feet invariably took precedence. 
It was perpetually pitching forward over its pointed, in¬ 
offensive nose, and recovering itself always, after these 
involuntary somersaults, with the gravest astonishment. 

106 



BABY SYLVESTER 


107 


To add to its preposterous appearance, one of its hind 
feet was adorned by a shoe of Sylvester’s °, into which it 
had accidentally and inextricably ° stepped. As this some¬ 
what impeded its first impulse to fly, it turned to me; and 
then, possibly recognizing in the stranger, the same species 5 
as its master, it paused. Presently, it slowly raised itself 
on its hind legs, and vaguely and deprecatingly 0 waved a 
baby paw, fringed with little hooks of steel. I took the 
paw, and shook it gravely. From that moment we were 
friends. The little affair of the serape was forgotten. io 
Nevertheless, I was wise enough to cement our friendship 
by an act of delicate courtesy. Following the direction 
of his eyes, I had no difficulty in finding, on a shelf near the 
ridge-pole, the sugar box and the square lumps of white 
sugar that even the poorest miner is never without. While 15 
he was eating them I had time to examine him more closely. 
His body was a silky, dark, but exquisitely modulated gray, 
deepening to black in his paws and muzzle. His fur was 
excessively long, thick, and soft as eider-down, the cushions 
of flesh beneath perfectly infantine in their texture and 20 
contour. He was so very young that the palms of his 
half-human feet were still tender as a baby’s. Except 
for the bright blue, steely hooks, half sheathed in his little 
toes, there was not a single harsh outline or detail in his 
plump figure. He was as free from angles as one of Leda’s 0 25 
offspring. Your caressing hand sank away in his fur 
with dreamy languor. To look at him long was an intoxi¬ 
cation of the senses; to pat him was a wild delirium; to 
embrace him, an utter demoralization of the intellectual 
faculties. 30 

When he had finished the sugar he rolled out of the door 
with a half-diffident, half-inviting look in his eye, as if he 


108 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


expected me to follow. I did so, but the sniffing and snort¬ 
ing of the keen-scented Pomposo 0 in the hollow, not only 
revealed the cause of his former terror, but decided me to 
take another direction. After a moment's hesitation he 
5 concluded to go with me, although I am satisfied, from a 
certain impish look in his eye, that he fully understood 
and rather enjoyed the fright of Pomposo. As he rolled 
along at my side, with a gait not unlike a drunken sailor, 
I discovered that his long hair concealed a leather collar 
io around his neck, which bore for its legend the single word, 
“Baby!” I recalled the mysterious suggestion of the two 
miners. This, then was the “baby” with whom I was to 
“play.” 

How we “played”; how Baby allowed me to roll him 
15 downhill, crawling and puffing up again each time, with 
perfect good humor; how he climbed a young sapling after 
my Panama hat, which I had “shied” into one of the top¬ 
most branches; how after getting it he refused to descend 
until it suited his pleasure; how when he did come down he 
20 persisted in walking about on three legs, carrying my hat, 
a crushed and shapeless mass, clasped to his breast with the 
remaining one; how I missed him at last, and finally dis¬ 
covered him seated on a table in one of the tenantless 
cabins, with a bottle of syrup between his paws, vainly 
25 endeavoring to extract its contents — these and other 
details of that eventful day I shall not weary the reader 
with now. Enough, that when Dick Sylvester returned, 
I was pretty well fagged out, and the baby was rolled up, 
an immense bolster at the foot of the couch, asleep. 

— Bret Harte (adapted). 


ADDRESS AT GETTYSBURG 


Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought 
forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, 
and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created 
equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing 
whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so s 
dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle¬ 
field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion 
of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave 
their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether 
fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a io 
larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we 
cannot hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and 
dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above 
our poor power to add or detract. The world will little 
note, nor long remember, what we say here; but it can is 
never forget what they did here. 

It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the 
unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far 
so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedi¬ 
cated to the great task remaining before us; — that from 20 
these honored dead, we take increased devotion to that 
cause for which they gave the last full measure of devo¬ 
tion ; — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall 
not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall 
have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the 25 
people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from 
the earth. 

— Abraham Lincoln. 

109 



SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS 


Fellow Countrymen : At this second appearing to take 
the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for 
an extended address than there was at the first. Then, a 
statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, 
5 seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four 
years, during which public declarations have been con¬ 
stantly called forth on every point and phase of the great 
contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the 
energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented, 
io The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly 
depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and 
it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to 
all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard 
to it is ventured. 

15 On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, 
all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending 
civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While 
the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, 
devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, 
20 insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it 
without war — seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide 
effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but 
one of them would make war rather than let the nation 
survive; and the other would accept war rather than let 
25 it perish. And the war came. 

110 


SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS 


111 


One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, 
not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in 
the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a pecu¬ 
liar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, 
somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, 5 
and extend this interest was the object for which the in¬ 
surgents would rend the Union, even by war; while govern¬ 
ment claimed no right to do more than to restrict the ter¬ 
ritorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the 
war the magnitude or the duration which it has already 10 
attained. Neither, anticipated that the cause of the con¬ 
flict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself 
should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a 
result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the 
same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes 15 
his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any 
men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing 
their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces; but let 
us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of 
both could not be answered, — that of neither has been 20 
answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. 
“Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it must 
needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by 
whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that 
American slavery is one of these offenses which, in the pro- 25 
vidence of God, must needs come, but which, having con¬ 
tinued through his appointed time, He now wills to remove, 
and that He gives to both North and South this terrible 
war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, 
shall we discern therein any departure from those divine 30 
attributes which the believers in a living God always 
ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we 




112 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 

pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass 
away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the 
wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty 
years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop 
5 of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another 
drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years 
ago, so still it must be said, “ The judgments of the Lord 
are true and righteous altogether.” 

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firm- 
io ness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us 
strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the 
nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the 
battle, and for his widow and his orphan, — to do all which 
may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among 
is ourselves, and with all nations. 


— Abraham Lincoln. 


AN APPRECIATION OF LINCOLN 


To these qualifications of high literary excellence, and 
easy practical mastery of affairs of transcendent impor¬ 
tance, we must add as an explanation of his immediate and 
world-wide fame, his possession of certain moral qualities 
rarely combined in such high degree in one individual. 5 
His heart was so tender that he would dismount from his 
horse in a forest to replace in their nest young birds which 
had fallen by the roadside; he could not sleep at night 
if he knew that a soldier-boy was under sentence of death; 
he could not, even at the bidding of duty or policy, refuse 10 
the prayer of age or helplessness in distress. Children 
instinctively loved him; they never found his rugged 
features ugly; his sympathies were quick and seemingly 
unlimited. He was absolutely without prejudice of class 
or condition. Frederick Douglass 0 says he was the only 15 
man of distinction he ever met who never reminded him, 
by word or manner, of his color; he was as just and gen¬ 
erous to the rich and well-born as to the poor and humble — 
a thing rare among politicians. He was tolerant even of 
evil: though no man can ever have lived with a loftier 20 
scorn of meanness and selfishness, he yet recognized their 
existence and counted with them. He said one day, with 
a flash of cynical wisdom worthy of a La Rochefoucauld 0 , 
that honest statesmanship was the employment of individ¬ 
ual meanness for the public good. He never asked per- 25 
1 113 



114 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


fection of any one; he did not even insist, for others, upon 
the high standards he set up for himself. At a time before 
the word was invented he was the first of opportunists. 
With the fire of a reformer and a martyr in his heart, he 
5 yet proceeded by the ways of cautious and practical state¬ 
craft. He always worked with things as they were, while 
never relinquishing the desire and effort to make them 
better. To a hope which saw the Delectable Mountains 
of absolute justice and peace in the future, to a faith that 
io God in his own time would give to all men the things con¬ 
venient to them, he added a charity which embraced in 
its deep bosom all the good and the bad, all the virtues 
and the infirmities of men, and a patience like that of na¬ 
ture, which in its vast and fruitful activity knows neither 
15 haste nor rest. 


— John Hay. 




A BAD FIVE MINUTES IN THE ALPS 147 

rheum — as Shakespeare pleasantly puts it — or to the 
luckless wretch who is clinging in useless supplication at 
their feet. Grim and fierce, like some primeval giant, 
that peak looked to me, and for a time the whole doctrine 
preached by the modern worshippers of sublime scenery 5 
seemed inexpressibly absurd and out of place. 

It was becoming tempting to throw up the cards and 
have done with it. Even the short sharp pang of the crash 
on the rocks below seemed preferable to draining the last 
dregs of misery. I gathered myself up, crouching as low 10 
as I dared, and then springing from the right foot, and 
aiding the spring with my left hand, I threw out my right 
at the little jutting point. The tips of my fingers just 
reached their aim, but only touched without anchoring 
themselves. As I fell back, my foot missed its former sup- 15 
port, and my whole weight came heavily on the feeble left 
hand. The clutch was instantaneously tom apart, and I 
was falling through the air. All was over! The mountains 
sprang upwards with a bound. But before the fall had 
well begun, before the air had begun to whistle past me, my 20 
movement was arrested. With a shock of surprise I found 
myself lying on a broad bed of deep moss, as comfortably 
as in my bed at home. 


Leslie Stephen (adapted). 




THE GOLD TRAIL 


We came upon the diggings quite suddenly. The trail 
ran around the corner of a hill; and there they were below 
us! In the wide, dry stream bottom perhaps fifty men 
were working busily, like a lot of ants. Some were picking 
5 away at the surface of the ground, others had dug them¬ 
selves down waist deep, and stooped and rose like legless 
bodies. Others had disappeared below ground, and 
showed occasionally only as shovel blades. From so 
far above, the scene was very lively and animated, for 
io each was working like a beaver, and the red shirts made 
gay little spots of colour. On the hillside clung a few 
white tents and log cabins; but the main town itself, we 
later discovered, as well as the larger diggings, lay around 
the bend and upstream. 

15 We looked all around us for some path leading down to 
the river, but could find none; so perforce we had to con¬ 
tinue on along the trail. Thus we entered the camp of 
Hangman’s Gulch; for if it had been otherwise, I am sure 
we would have located promptly where we had seen those 
* 20 red-shirted men. 

The camp consisted merely of a closer-knit group of 
tents, log shacks, and a few larger buildings constructed 
of a queer combination of heavy hewn timbers and canvas. 
We saw nobody at all, though in some of the larger build- 
25 ings we heard signs of life. However, we did not wait to 

148 



THE GOLD TRAIL 


149 


investigate the wonders of Hangman’s Gulch, but drove 
our animals along the one street, looking for the trail that 
should lead us back to the diggings. Wei missed it, some¬ 
how, but struck into a beaten path that took us upstream. 
This we followed a few hundred yards. It proceeded 5 
along a rough, boulder-strewn river-bed, around a point 
of rough, jagged rocks, and out to a very wide gravelly 
flat through which the river had made itself a narrow 
channel. The flat swarmed with men, all of them busy, 
and very silent. 10 

Leading our pack-horses we approached the nearest 
pair of these men, and stood watching them curiously. 
One held a coarse screen of willow which he shook con¬ 
tinuously above a common cooking-pot, while the other 
slowly shovelled earth over this sieve. When the two 15 
pots, which with the shovel seemed to be all the tools 
these men possessed, had been half filled thus with the 
fine earth, the men carried them to the river. We fol¬ 
lowed. The miners carefully submerged the pots, and 
commenced to stir their contents with their fists. The 20 
light earth muddied, the water, floated upward, and then 
flowed slowly over the rim of the pots and down the 
current. After a few minutes of this, they lifted the pots 
carefully, drained off the water, and started back. 

“May we look?” ventured Johnny. ; 25 

The taller man glanced at us, and our pack-horses, 
and nodded. This was the first time he had troubled 
to take a good look at us. The bottom of the pot was 
covered with fine black sand in which we caught the 
gleam and sparkle of something yellow. 30 

“Is that gold?” I asked, awed. 

“That’s gold,” the man repeated, his rather saturnine 


150 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


features lighting up with a grin. Then seeing our interest, 
he unbent a trifle. “We dry the sand, and then blow it 
away,” he explained; and strode back to where his com¬ 
panion was impatiently waiting, 
s We stumbled on over the rocks and debris. There 
were probably something near a hundred men at work 
in the gulch. We soon observed that the pot method was 
considered a very crude and simple way of getting out the 
gold. Most of the men carried iron pans full of the earth 
io to the waterside, where, after submerging until the lighter 
earth had floated off, they slopped the remainder over 
the side with a peculiar twisting, whirling motion, leaving 
at last only the black sand — and the gold! These pan 
miners were in the great majority. But one group of 
is four men was doihg business on a larger scale. They 
had constructed what looked like a very shallow baby- 
cradle on rockers into which they poured their earth and 
water. By rocking the cradle violently but steadily, 
they spilled the mud over the sides. Cleats had been 
20 nailed in the bottom to catch the black sand. 

We wandered about here and there, looking with all our 
eyes. The miners were very busy and silent, but quite 
friendly, and allowed us to examine as much as we pleased 
the results of their operations. In the pots and cradles 
25 the yellow flake gold glittered plainly, contrasting with 
the black sand. In the pans, however, the residue spread 
out fan-shaped along the angle between the bottom and 
the side, and at the apex the gold lay heavy and beautiful 
all by itself. The men were generally bearded, tanned 
30 with working in this blinding sun, and plastered liberally 
with the red earth. We saw some queer sights, however; 
as when we came across a jolly pair dressed in what were 




THE GOLD TRAIL 


151 


the remains of ultra-fashionable garments up to and 
including plug hats! At one side working some distance 
from the stream were small groups of native Californians 
or Mexicans. They did not trouble to carry the earth 
•all the way to the river; but, after screening it roughly, 5 
tossed it into the air above a canvas, thus winnowing 
out the heavier pay dirt 0 . I thought this must be very 
disagreeable. 

As we wandered about here and there among all these 
men so busily engaged, and with our own eyes saw pan 10 
after pan show gold, actual metallic guaranteed gold, such 
as rings and watches and money are made of, a growing 
excitement possessed us, the excitement of a small boy 
with a new and untried gun. We wanted to get at it 
ourselves. Only we did not know how. 15 

Finally Yank approached one of the busy miners. 

“Stranger,” said he, “we’re new to this. Maybe you 
can tell us where we can dig a little of this gold ourselves.” 

The man straightened his back, to exhibit a roving 
humorous blue eye, with which he examined Yank from 20 
top to toe. 

“If,” said he, “it wasn’t for that eighteen-foot cannon 
you carry over your left arm, and a cold gray pair of eyes 
you carry in your head, I’d direct you up the sidehill 
yonder, and watch you sweat. As it is, you can work 25 
anywhere anybody else isn’t working. Start in!” 

“Can we dig next to you, then?” asked Yank, nodding 
at an unbroken piece of ground just upstream. 

The miner clambered carefully out of his waist-deep 
trench, searched his pockets, produced a pipe and tobacco. 3c 
After lighting this he made Yank a low bow. 

“Thanks for the compliment; but I warn you, this 


152 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


claim of mine is not very rich. Fm thinking of trying 
somewhere else.” 

“Don’t you get any gold?” 

“Oh, a few ounces a day.” 

s “That suits me for a beginning,” said Yank decidedly.' 
“ Come on boys!” 

The miner hopped back into his hole, only to stick his 
head out again for the purpose of telling us: 

“Mind you keep fifteen feet away!” 
io With eager hands we slipped a pick and shovels from 
beneath the pack ropes, undid our iron bucket, and with¬ 
out further delay commenced feverishly to dig. 

— Stewart Edward White. 


TWENTY YEARS OF ARCTIC STRUGGLE 


On the 28 th of February the various parties took their 
departure from Cape Hecla, and following in the rear, 
Peary hurried on with all possible speed, hopeful of reach¬ 
ing the Pole at last. 

For some days the ice was in motion everywhere; but5 
it gradually became quieter, and as there was very little 
wind the travelling was particularly good. Full of im¬ 
patience as he tramped along, and grudging every moment 
given to rest, Peary dreaded lest he should meet with some 
obstacle, such as open water or impassable ice, that would io 
put an end to the journey northwards. 

Delayed by gales and open water, and driven out of his 
course seventy miles to the eastward, Peary was cut off 
from communication with his supporting parties; and 
finding that he could no longer depend upon them, he is 
determined to make a dash for the Pole with the party, 
eight in all, and the supplies which he had with him. 

Abandoning everything not absolutely essential and 
bending every energy to set a record pace, they travelled 
thirty miles in a ten hours’ march. Storms of wind and 20 
snow added considerably to the difficulties of the journey, 
the strain of which told severely on both men and dogs. 

The 20 th of April brought the weary travellers into a 
region of open leads 0 , bearing north and south. Resting 
here for a few hours, Peary and his companions resumed 25 
153 



154 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 

their march at midnight, pushing on with feverish haste 
to lessen the distance between them and the goal that was 
luring them on. Travelling as fast as they could till noon 
of the 21st, they then came to a final halt. 

5 Disappointed at once more having to stop before the 
object of all his striving had been reached, Peary would 
have liked to make the last dash with only one or two of 
his men; but he dared not do this in view of the condition 
of the ice, and reluctantly he had to confess that once again 
io the prize had eluded his grasp. Making observations, he 
found that they were in 87° 6' north latitude, the most 
northerly point that had yet been reached by man. 

Warned by the haggard faces of his comrades and the 
skeleton figures of the few remaining dogs, Peary saw that 
15 no time must be lost in turning back. After hoisting a 
flag from the summit of the highest pinnacle, and leaving 
a bottle containing a record of the journey, the exhausted 
men turned their backs on the Pole, and began the weary 
march homeward. 

20 Trying as the outward march had been, the dangers of 
the return journey were even greater. Besides, there was 
no longer the excitement of possible victory to encourage 
the men in the face of hardships. Killing their dogs for 
food, and breaking up the sledges to provide fires for cook- 
25 ing, the tired and dispirited explorers pushed on till they 
found themselves stranded on an island of ice. Was this, 
then, to be the end of the enterprise, and were they to 
meet death in that cold and pitiless sea? Such a fate 
seemed inevitable. But just as they were preparing for 
30 the worst, two of the Eskimo scouts came hurrying back 
to the camp with the report that, a few miles farther on, the 
water was covered with a film of young ice, and that there 


TWENTY YEARS OF ARCTIC STRUGGLE 155 


was a possibility of their being able to cross on snow- 
shoes. 

It was a desperate chance, but they were prepared to 
take it; and carefully fixing on their snow-shoes, they 
made the venture, the lightest and most experienced 5 
Eskimo taking the lead, with the few remaining dogs 
attached to the long sledge following, “ and the rest of the 
party abreast, in widely extended skirmish line, some dis¬ 
tance behind the sledge.” They crossed in silence, the 
ice swaying beneath them as they skimmed along. What 10 
the result would be none could tell; but they all felt the 
greatness of their peril. 

Peary himself confesses that this was the first and only 
time in all his Arctic experience that he felt doubtful as 
to what would happen. 11 When near the middle of the 15 
lead,” he says, “the toe of one of my snow-shoes, as I slid 
forward, broke through twice in succession; then I thought 
to myself, ‘This is the finish.’ A little later there was 
a cry from some one in the line, but I dared not take my 
eyes from the steady gliding of my snow-shoes. When 2c 
we stepped upon the firm ice on the southern side of the 
lead, sighs of relief from the two men nearest me were 
distinctly audible. The cry I had heard had been from 
one of my men, whose toe, like mine, had broken through 
the ice.” The crossing had been made just in time, for, 25 
as the travellers looked round for a moment before turning 
their faces southward, they saw that the sheet of ice on 
which they had crossed was in two pieces. “ The lead 
was widening again.” 

All were safely across; but they were not yet out of30 
danger. Unable to find a route which they might traverse 
with any degree of safety, Peary and his men ascended a 


156 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 

high mass of ice to have a better view of their surroundings, 
and to look for a way of escape. What they beheld from 
their elevated position might well have struck terror into 
the boldest heart. Before them extended “such a mass of 
5 shattered ice” as Peary had never seen before and hoped 
never to see again, “a confused mass of fragments, some 
only the size of paving-stones, others as large as the dome 
of the Capitol at Washington, but all rounded by the 
terrific grinding they had received.” 
io Once again death was looking them in the face, for it 
seemed an utter impossibility to find a path through that j 
frozen wilderness. But as long as they could keep a foot- j 
ing they determined to struggle on; and stumbling for¬ 
ward at every step, bruised and sore, they at last struck ; 
15 a better road. They made their way to Britannia Island 0 , j 
and thence to Cape May and Cape Bryant. 

The brave party suffered much from want of food. For 
days on end they were on the verge of starvation. A hare | 
that was shot gave them the first full meal for nearly ! 
20 forty days. With snow falling around them, and without 
'tent or covering of any kind, they lay down on the ground 
to sleep. 

Waking in the morning as tired and hungry as ever, 
they found the tracks of musk-oxen 0 in the snow, and their 
25 hopes rose as they endeavoured to follow the trail. Sweep¬ 
ing the valley with their field-glass, they could see no sign 
of a living thing; but later on they espied several black 
dots at a distance, and knew that they had located the 
herd. Pushing on towards them, Peary and a companion 
30 lay down behind a big boulder to rest and gather strength, 
for they dared not risk a shot before they were sure of 
their aim. 


TWENTY YEARS OF ARCTIC STRUGGLE 157 

Resolving at last on an attack, the two men grasped 
[ their rifles, and, rushing out from behind their place of 
I shelter, made straight for the animals, now less than two 
* hundred yards away. An old bull that was standing 
guard gave the signal to charge, and in a minute the “ black 5 
avalanche of thundering beasts” was bearing down on 
their enemies : 

Fortunately for Peary his shot went true, and the great 
bull fell dead. The maddened rush was stopped; and 
before the oxen could make their retreat over the ridges 10 
six of their number lay dead upon the frozen ground; 
and for the next few days the party revelled in the delights 
of a continuous feast. 

Reaching the Roosevelt 0 at the end of July, the ex¬ 
pedition returned to America a few months later. After 15 
twenty years of heroic striving, Pe&ry had again missed the 
prize; but the victory was postponed only for a little 
while. 


— J. Kennedy McLean. 


HENRY WARD BEECHER'S ACCOUNT OF 
HIS SPEECH IN MANCHESTER 


I went to my hotel, and when the day came on which 
I was to make my first speech, I struck out the notes of 
my speech in the morning; and then came up a kind of 
horror — “I don't know whether I can do anything with 
s an English audience — I have never had any experience 
with an English audience. My American ways, which 
are all well enough with Americans, may utterly fail here, 
and a failure in the cause of my country now and here is 
horrible beyond conception to me!" I think I never 
icwent through such a struggle of darkness and suffering 
in all my life as I did that afternoon. It was about the 
going down of the sun that God brought me to that state 
in which I said, “Thy will be done. I am willing to be 
annihilated; I am willing to fail if the Lord wants me to." 
I5 1 gave it all up into the hands of God, and rose up in a 
state of peace and serenity simply unspeakable, and when 
the coach came to take me down to Manchester Hall I 
felt no disturbance nor dreamed of anything but success. 

We reached the hall. The crowd was already beginning 
20 to be tumultuous, and I recollect thinking to myself as 
I stood there looking at them, “ I will control you! I came 
here for victory, and I will have it, by the help of God!" 
Well, I was introduced, and I must confess that the things 
that I had done and suffered in my own country, according 
158 



THE SPEECH IN MANCHESTER 


159 


i to what the chairman who introduced me said, amazed 
I me. The speaker was very English on the subject, and 
[ I learned that I belonged to an heroic band, and all that 
sort of thing, with Abolitionism mixed in, and so on. By 
. the way, I think it was there that I was introduced as the s 
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher Stowe. But as soon as I began 
to speak the great audience began to show its teeth, and 
I had not gone on fifteen minutes before an unparalleled 
scene of confusion and interruption occurred. No Ameri¬ 
can that has not seen an English mob can form any con- io 
ception of one. I have seen all sorts of camp meetings 
and experienced all kinds of public speaking on the stump; 

I have seen the most disturbed meetings in New York 
City, and they were all of them as twilight to midnight 
compared with an English hostile audience. For in 15 
England the meeting does not belong to the parties that 
call it, but to whoever chooses to go; and if they can take 
it out of your hands, it is considered fair play. This meet¬ 
ing had a very large multitude of men in it who came 
there for the purpose of destroying the meeting and carry- 20 
ing it the other way when it came to a vote. 

I took the measure of the audience and said to myself, 

“ About one fourth of this audience are opposed to me, 
and about one fourth will be rather in sympathy; and 
my business now is, not to appeal to that portion that is 25 
opposed to me nor to those that are already on my side, 
but to bring over the middle section.” How to do this 
was a problem. The question was, who could hold out 
longest. There were five or six storm-centres, boiling and 
whirling at the same time: here some one pounding on a 30 
group with his umbrella and shouting, “Sit down there;” 
over yonder a row between two or three combatants; 



160 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


somewhere else a group all yelling together at the top of 
their voices. It was like talking to a storm at sea. But 
there were the newspaper reporters just in front, and I 
said to them, “Now, gentlemen, be kind enough to take 
s down what I say. It will be in sections, but I will have it 
connected by and by.” I threw my notes away, and 
entered on a discussion of the value of freedom as opposed 
to slavery in the manufacturing interest, arguing that 
freedom everywhere increases a man’s necessities, and 
io what he needs he buys, and that it was, therefore, to the 
interest of the manufacturing community to stand by 
the side of labor through the country. I never was more 
self-possessed and never in more perfect good temper, 
and I never was more determined that my hearers should 
15 feel the curb before I got through with them. The up¬ 
roar would come in on this side and on that, and they 
would put insulting questions and make all sorts of calls 
to me, and I would wait until the noise had subsided, and 
then get in about five minutes of talk. The reporters 
20 would get that down, and then up would come another 
noise. Occasionally I would see things that amused me 
and would laugh outright, and the crowd would stop to 
see what I was laughing at. Then I would sail in again 
with a sentence or two. A good many times the crowd 
25 threw up questions which I caught at and answered back. 
I may as well put in here one thing that amused me hugely. 
There were baize doors that opened both ways into side 
alleys, and there was a huge, burly Englishman standing 
right in front of one of those doors and roaring like a bull 
30 of Bashan; one of the policemen swung his elbow around 
and hit him in the belly and knocked him through the door¬ 
way, so that the last part of the bawl was outside in the 


THE SPEECH IN MANCHESTER 


161 


alleyway; it struck me so ludicrously to think how the 
fellow must have looked when he found himself “hollering” 
outside that I could not refrain from laughing outright. 
The audience immediately stopped its uproars, wondering 
what I was laughing at, and that gave me another chance, 5 
and I caught it. So we kept on for about an hour and a 
half before they got so far calmed down that I could go on 
peaceably with my speech. They liked the pluck. Eng¬ 
lishmen like a man that can stand on his feet and give 
and take; and so for the last hour I had pretty clear 10 
sailing. The next morning every great paper in England 
had the whole speech. I think it was the design of the 
men there to break me down on that first speech, by fair 
means or foul, feeling that if they could do that it would 
be trumpeted all over the land. I said to them then and is 
there, “Gentlemen, you may break me down now, but I 
have registered a vow that I will never return home until 
I have been heard in every county and principal town in the 
Kingdom of Great Britain. I am not going to be broken 
down nor put down. I am going to be heard, and my 20 
country shall be vindicated.” Nobody knows better 
than I did what it is to feel that every interest that touches 
the heart of a Christian man and a patriotic man and a 
lover of liberty is being assailed wantonly, to stand between 
one nation and your own, and to feel that you are in a 25 
situation in which your country rises or falls with you. 
And God was behind it all; I felt it and knew it; and when 
I got through and the vote was called off, you would have 
thought it was a tropical thunderstorm that swept through 
that hall as the ayes were thundered, while the noes were 30 
an insignificant and contemptible minority. It had all 
gone on our side, and such enthusiasm I never saw. I 


162 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


think it was there that when I started to go down into 
the rooms below to get an exit, a big burly Englishman 
in the gallery wanted to shake hands with me, and I could 
not reach him, and he called out, “Shake my unbrella!” 

5 and he reached it over; I shook it, and as I did so he 
shouted, “By Jock! Nobody shall touch that umbrella 
again \” 

— Henry Ward Beecher. 




A GREEN DONKEY DRIVER 


There dwelt an old man in Monastier 0 , of rather un¬ 
sound intellect according to some, much followed by street- 
boys, and known to fame as Father Adam. Father Adam 
had a cart, and to draw the cart a diminutive donkey, 
not much bigger than a dog, the color of a mouse, with 5 
a kindly eye and a determined under-jaw. There was 
something neat and high-bred, a Quakerish elegance, 
about the rogue that hit my fancy on the spot. 

Our first interview was in Monastier market-place. 
To prove her good temper, one child after another was ro 
set upon her back to ride, and one after another went 
head over heels into the air; until a want of confidence 
began to reign in youthful bosoms, and the experiment 
was discontinued from a dearth of subjects. I was already 
backed by a deputation 0 of my friends; but as'if this were 15 
not enough, all the buyers and sellers came around and 
helped me in the bargain; and the ass and I and Father 
Adam were the centre of a hubbub for near half an hour. 

At length she passed into my service for the consideration 
of sixty-five francs and a glass of brandy. The sack had al- 20 
ready cost eighty francs and two glasses of beer; so that 
Modestine, as I instantly baptized her, was upon all ac¬ 
counts the cheaper article. 

By the advice of a fallacious 0 local saddler, a leather 
pad was made for me with rings to fasten on my bundle; 25 


164 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


and I thoughtfully completed my kit and arranged my 
toilette. By way of armory and utensils, I took a re¬ 
volver, a little spirit lamp and pan, a lantern and some 
halfpenny candles, a jack-knife and a large leather flask. 

5 The main cargo consisted of two entire changes of warm 
clothing, besides my travelling wear of country velveteen, 
pilot coat, and knitted spencer, some books, and my rail¬ 
way-rug, which, being also in the form of a bag, made me 
a double castle for cold nights. The permanent larder 
io was represented by cakes of chocolate and tins of Bologna 
sausage. All this, except what I carried about my person, 
was easily stowed into the sheepskin bag; and by good 
fortune I threw in my empty knapsack, rather for con¬ 
venience of carriage than from any thought that I should 
is want it on my journey. For more immediate needs, I 
took a leg of cold mutton, a bottle of Beaujolais 0 , an 
empty bottle to carry milk, an egg-beater, and a con¬ 
siderable quantity of black bread and white for myself 
and donkey. 

20 On the day of my departure I was up a little after five; 
by six we began to load the donkey; and ten minutes 
after, my hopes were in the dust. The pad would not 
stay on Modestine’s back for half a moment. I returned 
it to its maker, with whom I had so contumelious 0 a passage 
25 that the street outside was crowded from wall to wall 
with gossips looking on and listening. The pad changed 
hands with much vivacity; perhaps it would be more 
descriptive to say that we threw it at each other’s heads; 
and, at any rate, we were very warm and unfriendly, and 
30 spoke with a deal of freedom. 

I had a common donkey pack-saddle fitted upon Modes- 
tine; and once more loaded her with my effects. 



A GREEN DONKEY DRIVER 


165 


The bell of Monastier was' just striking nine as I got 
quit of these preliminary troubles and descended the hill 
through the common. As long as I was within sight of 
the windows, a secret shame and the fear of some laughable 
defeat withheld me from tampering with Modestine. She 5 
tripped along upon her four small hoofs with a sober 
daintiness of gait; from time to time she shook her ears 
or her tail; and she looked so small under the bundle that 
my mind misgave me. We got across the ford without 
difficulty —• there was no doubt about the matter, she 10 
was docility itself — and once on the other bank, where 
the road begins to mount through pine-woods, I took in 
my right hand the unhallowed staff, and with a quaking 
spirit applied it to the donkey. Modestine brisked up 
her pace for perhaps three steps, and then relapsed into 15 
her former minuet 0 . Another application had the same 
effect, and so with the third. I am worthy the name of 
an Englishman, and it goes against my conscience to lay 
my hand rudely on a female. I desisted, and looked her 
all over from head to foot; the poor brute’s knees were20 
trembling and her breathing was distressed; it was plain 
that she could not go faster on a hill. God forbid, thought 
I, that I should brutalize this innocent creature; let her 
go at her own pace, and let me patiently follow. 

What that pace was, there is no word mean enough to 25 
describe, it was something as much slower than a walk as 
a walk is slower than a run; it kept me hanging on each 
foot for an incredible length of time; in five minutes it 
exhausted the spirit and set up a fever in all the muscles 
of the leg. And yet I had to keep close at hand and meas- 30 
ure my advance exactly upon hers; for if I dropped a few 
yards in to the rear, or went on a few yards ahead, Mo- 


166 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


destine came instantly to a halt and began to browse. The 
thought that this was to last from here to Alais° nearly 
broke my heart. Of all conceivable journeys, this 
promised to be the most tedious. I tried to tell myself 
s it was a lovely day; I tried to charm my foreboding 
spirit with tobacco; but I had a vision ever present to me 
of the long long roads, up hill and down dale, and a pair 
of figures ever infinitesimally moving, foot by foot, a 
yard to the minute, and, like things enchanted in a night- 
io mare, approaching no nearer to the goal. 

In the meantime there came up behind us a tall peasant, 
perhaps forty years of age, of an ironical snuffy counte¬ 
nance, and arrayed in the green tail-coat of the country. 
He overtook us hand over hand, and stopped to consider 
15 our ’pitiful advance. 

“Your donkey,” says he, “is very old?” 

I told him, I believed not. 

Then, he supposed, we had come far. 

I told him we had but newly left Monastier. 

20 “Et vous marchez comme ga°! ” cried he; and, throwing 
back his head, he laughed long and heartily. I watched 
him, half prepared to feel offended, until he had satisfied 
his mirth* and then, “You must have no pity-on these 
animals,” said he; and, plucking a switch out of a thicket, 
25 he began to lace Modestine about the stern works, uttering 
a cry. The rogue pricked up her ears and broke into a 
good round pace, which she kept up without flagging, and 
without exhibiting the least symptom of distress, as long 
as the peasant kept beside us. Her former panting and 
30 shaking had been, I regret to say, a piece of comedy. . 

My dens ex machina 0 , before he left me, supplied some 
excellent, if inhumane, advice; presented me with the 



A GREEN DONKEY DRIVER 


167 


switch, which he declared she would feel more tenderly 
than my cane; and finally taught me the true cry or masonic 
word of donkey-drivers, “Proot!” All the time, he re¬ 
garded me with a comical incredulous air, as I might have 
smiled over his orthography or his green tail-coat. Buts 
it was not my turn for the moment. 

I hurried over my midday meal, and was early forth 
again. But, alas, as we climbed the interminable hill 
upon the other side, “ Proot!” seemed to have lost its 
virtue. I prooted like a lion, I prooted melliflously 0 like io 
a sucking-dove; but Modestine would be neither softened 
nor intimidated. She held doggedly to her pace; nothing 
but a blow would move her, and that only for a second. 

I must follow at her heels, incessantly belaboring. A 
moment’s pause in this ignoble toil, and she relapsed into 15 
her own private gait. I think I never heard of any one 
in as mean a situation. I must reach the lake of Bouchet, 
where I meant to camp, before sundown; and, to have 
even a hope of this, I must instantly maltreat this un¬ 
complaining animal. The sound of my blows sickened 20 
me. Once, when I looked at her, she had a faint resem¬ 
blance to a lady of my acquaintance who formerly loaded 
me with kindness; and this increased my horror of my 
cruelty. 

It was blazing hot up the valley, windless, with vehe- 25 
ment sun upon my shoulders; and I had to labor so con¬ 
sistently with my stick that the sweat ran into my eyes. 
Every five minutes, too, the pack, the basket, and the 
pilot-coat would take an ugly slew 0 to one side or the other; 
and I had to stop Modestine, just when I had got her to 30 
a tolerable pace of about two miles an hour, to tug, push, 
shoulder, and re-adjust the load. And at last, in the 


168 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


village of Ussel°, saddle and all, the whole hypothec 0 
turned round and grovelled in the dust, below the donkey’s 
belly. She none better pleased, incontinently drew up 
and seemed to smile; and a party of one man, two women, 
s and two children came up, and, standing round me in a 
half-circle, encouraged her by their example. 

I disposed it, Heaven knows how, so as to be mildly 
portable, and then proceeded to steer Modestine through 
the village. She tried, as was indeed her invariable habit, 
io to enter every house and every courtyard in the whole 
length, and, encumbered as I was, without a hand to help 
myself, no words can render an idea of my difficulties. 
A priest, with six or seven others, was examining a church 
in process of repair, and his acolytes 0 laughed loudly as 
15 they saw my plight. I remembered having laughed my¬ 
self when I had seen good men struggling with adversity 
in the person of a jackass, and the recollection filled me with 
penitence. That was in my old light days, before this 
trouble came upon me. God knows at least that I shall 
20 never laugh again, thought I. But 0 , what a cruel thing 
is a farce to those engaged in it! 

A little out of the village, Modestine, filled with the 
demon, set her heart upon a by-road, and positively re¬ 
fused to leave it. I dropped all my bundles, and, I am 
25 ashamed to say, struck the poor sinner twice across the 
face. It was pitiful to see her lift up her head with shut 
eyes, as if waiting for another blow. I came very near 
crying; but I did a wiser thing than that, and sat squarely 
down by the roadside to consider my situation. Modes- 
30 tine in the meanwhile, munched some black bread with a 
contrite hypocritical air. It was plain that I must make 
a sacrifice to the gods of shipwreck. I threw away the 



A GREEN DONKEY DRIVER 


169 


empty bottles destined to carry milk; I threw away my 
own white bread, and, disdaining to act by general average, 
kept the black bread for Modestine; lastly I threw away 
the cold leg of mutton and the egg whisk, although this 
last was dear to my heart. 5 

Thus I found room for everything in the basket, and even 
stowed the boating-coat on the top. By means of an end 
of cord I slung it under one arm; and although the cord 
cut my shoulder, and the jacket hung almost to the 
ground, it was with a heart greatly lightened that I set io 
forth. — Robert Louis Stevenson (adapted). 


A NIGHT IN THE PINES 


The trees were not old, but they grew thickly round 
the glade: there was no outlook, except northeastward 
' upon distant hill-tops, or straight upward to the sky; 

and the encampment felt secure and private like a room. 

5 By the time I had made my arrangements and fed Modes- 
tine, the day was already beginning to decline. I buckled 
myself to the knees into my sack and made a hearty meal; 
and as soon as the sun went down, I pulled my cap over 
my eyes and fell asleep. 

io Night is a dead monotonous period under a roof; but 
in the open world it passes lightly, with its stars and dews 
and perfumes, and the hours are marked by changes in 
the face of Nature. What seems a kind of temporal 
death to people choked between walls and curtains, is 
is only a light and living slumber to the man who sleeps 
afield. All night long he can hear Nature breathing 
deeply and freely; even as she takes her rest she .turns 
and smiles; and there is one stirring hour unknown to 
those w r ho dwell in houses, when a,wakeful influence goes 
2.0 abroad over the sleeping hemisphere, and all the out-door 
world are on their feet. It is then that the cock first 
crows, not this time to announce the dawn, but like a 
cheerful watchman speeding the course of night. Cattle 
awake on the meadows; sheep break their fast on dewy 
25 hillsides, and change to a new lair among the ferns; and 

170 



A NIGHT IN THE PINES 


171 


houseless men, who have lain down with the fowls, open 
their dim eyes and behold the beauty of the night. 

The stars were clear, colored, and jewel-like, but not 
frosty. A faint silvery vapor stood for the Milky Way. 
All around me the black fir-points stood upright and 5 
stock-still. By the whiteness of the pack-saddle, I could 
see Modestine walking round and round at the length of 
her tether; I could hear her steadily munching at the 
sward; but there was not another sound, save the inde¬ 
scribable quiet talk of the runnel over the stones. I lay 10 
lazily smoking and studying the color of the sky, as we 
call the void of space, where it showed a reddish gray 
behind the pines to where it showed a glossy blue-black 
between the stars. As if to be more like a pedler, I wear 
a silver ring. This I could see faintly shining as I raised 15 
or lowered the cigarette; and at each whiff the inside of 
my hand was illuminated, and became for a second the 
highest light in the landscape. 

A faint wind, more like a moving coolness than a stream 
of air, passed down the glade from time to time; so that 20 
even in my great chamber the air was being renewed all 
night long. I thought with horror of the inn at Chasser- 
ades and the congregated night caps; with horror of the . 
nocturnal prowesses of clerks and students, of hot theatres, 
and passkeys and close rooms. I have not often enjoyed 25 
a more serene possession of myself, nor felt more inde¬ 
pendent of material aids. The outer world, from which 
we cower into our houses, seemed after all a gentle, habit¬ 
able place; and night after night a man’s bed, it seemed, 
was laid and waiting for him in the fields, where God keeps 3° 
an open house. 

As I lay thus, between content and longing, a faint 



172 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 

noise stole towards me through the pines. I thought, at 
first, it was the crowing of cocks or the barking of dogs 
at some very distant farm; but steadily and gradually 
it took articulate shape in my ears, until I became aware 
s that a passenger was going by upon the high-road in the 
valley, and singing loudly as he went. There was more 
of good-will than grace in his performance; but he trolled 
with ample lungs; and the sound of his voice took hold 
upon the hillside and set the air shaking in the leafy glens, 
iol have heard people passing by night in sleeping cities; 
some of them sang; one, I remember, played loudly on the 
bagpipes. I have heard the rattle of a cart or carriage 
spring up suddenly after hours of stillness, and pass for 
some minutes, within the range of my hearing as I lay 
15 abed. There is a romance about all who are abroad in the 
black hours, and with something of a thrill we try to guess 
their business. But here the romance was double; first 
this glad passenger, lit internally with wine, who sent up 
his voice in music through the night; and then I, on the 
20 other hand, buckled into my sack, and smoking alone in the 
pine-woods between four and five thousand feet towards 
the stars. 


— Robert Louis Stevenson. 


LIFE IN OLD NEW YORK 


In those good old days of simplicity and sunshine, a 
passion for cleanliness was the leading principle in do¬ 
mestic economy, and the universal test of an able house¬ 
wife. 

The front door was never opened, except for marriages, 5 
funerals, New Year’s Day, the festival of St. Nicholas, 
or some such great occasion. It was ornamented with a 
gorgeous brass knocker, which was curiously wrought,— 
sometimes in the device of a dog, and sometimes in that of 
a lion’s head, — and daily burnished with such religious 10 
zeal that it was often worn out by the very precautions 
taken for its preservation. 

The whole house was constantly in a state of inunda¬ 
tion 0 , under the discipline of mops and brooms and scrub¬ 
bing brushes; and the good housewives of those days were 15 
a kind of amphibious 0 animal, delighting exceedingly to be 
dabbling in water, — insomuch that an historian of the 
day gravely tells us that many of his townswomen grew 
to have webbed fingers, “like unto ducks.” 

The grand parlor was the sanctum, where the passion 20 
for cleaning was indulged without control. No one was 
permitted to enter this sacred apartment, except the mis¬ 
tress and her confidential maid, who visited it once a week 
for the purpose of giving it a thorough cleaning. On these 
. occasions they always took the precaution of leaving their 25 

173 



174 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 

1 

shoes at the door, and entering devoutly 0 in their stocking 
feet. 

After scrubbing the floor, sprinkling it with fine white 
sand, — which was curiously stroked with a broom into 
s angles and curves and rhomboids, — after washing the 
windows, rubbing and polishing the furniture, and putting 
a new branch of evergreens in the fireplace, the windows 
were again closed to keep out the flies, and the room was 
kept carefully locked, until the revolution of time brought 
io round the weekly cleaning day. 

As to the family, they always entered in at the gate, 
and generally lived in the kitchen. To have seen a nu¬ 
merous household assembled round the fire, one would 
have imagined that he was transported to those happy 
15 days of primeval simplicity which float before our im¬ 
aginations like golden visions. 

The fireplaces were of a-truly patriarchal magnitude, 
where the whole family, old and young, master and ser¬ 
vant, black and white, — nay, even the very cat and dog, 
20 — enjoyed a community of privilege, and had each a right 
to a corner. Here the old burgher would sit in perfect 
silence, puffing his pipe, looking in the fire with half¬ 
shut eyes, and thinking of nothing, for hours together; 
the good wife on the opposite side, would employ herself 
25 diligently in spinning yarn or knitting stockings. 

The young folks would crowd around the hearth, lis¬ 
tening with breathless attention to some old crone of a 
negro, who was the oracle of the family, and who, perched 
like a raven in a corner of the chimney, would croak forth, 
30 for a long winter afternoon, a string of incredible stories 
about New England witches, grisly ghosts, and bloody en¬ 
counters among Indians. 


LIFE IN OLD NEW YORK 


175 


In these happy days, fashionable parties were generally 
confined to the higher classes, or noblesse; that is to say, 
such as kept their own cows, and drove their own wagons. 
The company usually assembled at three o’clock, and 
went away about six, unless it was in winter time, when 5 
the fashionable hours were a little earlier, that the ladies 
might reach home before dark. 

The tea table was crowned with a huge earthen dish, 
well stored with slices of fat pork, fried brown, cut up into 
morsels, and swimming in gravy. The company seated ic 
round the genial board, evinced their dexterity in launch¬ 
ing their forks at the- fattest pieces in this mighty dish, — 
in much the same manner that sailors harpoon porpoises 
at sea, or our Indians spear salmon in the lakes. 

Sometimes the table was graced with immense apple is 
pies, or saucers full of preserved peaches and pears; 
but it was always sure to boast an enormous dish 
of balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog’s fat and 
called doughnuts or olykoeks, a delicious kind of cake, 
at present little known in this city, except in genuine 20 
Dutch families. 

The tea was served out of a majestic Delft teapot, 
ornamented with paintings of fat little Dutch shepherds 
and shepherdesses tending pigs, — with boats sailing in 
the air, and houses built in the clouds, and sundry other 25 
ingenious Dutch fancies. The beaux distinguished them¬ 
selves by their adroitness in replenishing this pot from a 
huge copper teakettle. To sweeten the beverage, a lump 
of sugar was laid beside each cup, and the company alter¬ 
nately nibbled and sipped with great decorum; until an 30 
improvement was introduced by a shrewd and economic 
old lady, which was to suspend, by a string from the ceiling, 



178 SHORT STORIES •AND SELECTIONS 

of the papooch embroiderers, where all the little dens are 
filled with velvet, pearls and gold; the street of the furni¬ 
ture decorators; that of the naked, grimy blacksmiths; 
that of the dyers, with purple or indigo-bedaubed arms. 

5 Finally, the quarter of the armorers, who make long 
flint-lock muskets, thin as cane-stalks, the silver inlaid 
butt of which is made excessively large so as to receive the 
shoulder. The Moroccans 0 never have the slightest idea 
of changing the form adopted by their ancestors, and the 
io shape of their musket is as immutable as all things else are 
in this country; it seems like a dream to see them at this 
day making such quantities of these old-fashioned arms. 

A stifled hum of unceasing activity arises from the mass 
of people, clad in their gray woolen robes, thus congre- 
15 gated from afar to buy and sell all sorts of queer small 
objects. There are sorcerers performing their incanta¬ 
tions; bands of armed men dancing the war-dance, with 
firing of guns, to the sound of the tambourines and the 
wailing pipes; beggars exposing their sores; negro slaves 
20wheeling their loads; asses rolling in the dust. The 
ground, of the same grayish shade as the multitude upon 
it, is covered with all kinds of filth: animal refuse, chicken 
feathers, dead mice; and the crowd tread down the re¬ 
volting mass under their trailing slipped. 

25 How far removed is all this life from ours! The ac¬ 
tivity of this people is as foreign to us as its stagnation 
and its slumberousness. An indifference which I cannot 
explain, a disregard of everything, to us quite unknown, 
characterized these burnous-clad folk even in their greatest 
30 stir and bustle. The cowled heads of the men and the 
veiled heads of the women are occupied by one unchanging 
dream, even in the midst of their bargaining; five times 


A BAD FIVE MINUTES IN THE ALPS 147 


rheum — as Shakespeare pleasantly puts it — or to the 
'luckless wretch who is clinging in useless supplication at 
their feet. Grim and fierce, like some primeval giant, 
that peak looked to me, and for a time the whole doctrine 
preached by the modern worshippers of sublime scenery 5 
seemed inexpressibly absurd and out of place. 

It was becoming tempting to throw up the cards and 
have done with it. Even the short sharp pang of the crash 
on the rocks below seemed preferable to draining the last 
dregs of misery. I gathered myself up, crouching as low 10 
as I dared, and then springing from the right foot, and 
aiding the spring with my left hand, I threw out my right 
at the little jutting point. The tips of my fingers just 
reached their aim, but only touched without anchoring 
themselves. As I fell back, my foot missed its former sup- 15 
port, and my whole weight came heavily on the feeble left 
hand. The clutch was instantaneously tom apart, and I 
was falling through the air. All was over! The mountains 
sprang upwards with a bound. But before the fall had 
well begun, before the air had begun to whistle past me, my 20 
movement was arrested. With a shock of surprise I found 
myself lying on a broad bed of deep moss, as comfortably 
as in my bed at home. 


Leslie Stephen (adapted). 



THE GOLD TRAIL 


We came upon the diggings quite suddenly. The trail 
ran around the corner of a hill; and there they were below 
us! In the wide, dry stream bottom perhaps fifty men 
were working busily, like a lot of ants. Some were picking 
5 away at the surface of the ground, others had dug them¬ 
selves down waist deep, and stooped and rose like legless 
bodies. Others had disappeared below ground, and 
showed occasionally only as shovel blades. From so 
far above, the scene was very lively and animated, for 
io each was working like a beaver, and the red shirts made 
gay little spots of colour. On the hillside clung a few 
white tents and log cabins; but the main town itself, we 
later discovered, as well as the larger diggings, lay around 
the bend and upstream. 

is We looked all around us for some path leading down to 
the river, but could find none; so perforce we had to con¬ 
tinue on along the trail. Thus we entered the camp of 
Hangman’s Gulch; for if it had been otherwise, I am sure 
we would have located promptly where we had seen those 
20 red-shirted men. 

The camp consisted merely of a closer-knit group of 
tents, log shacks, and a few larger buildings constructed 
of a queer combination of heavy hewn timbers and canvas. 
We saw nobody at all, though in some of the larger build- 
25 ings we heard signs of life. However, we did not wait to 

148 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


149 


investigate the wonders of Hangman’s Gulch, but drove 
our animals along the one street, looking for the trail that 
should lead us back to the diggings. We missed it, some¬ 
how, but struck into a beaten path that took us upstream. 
This we followed a few hundred yards. It proceeded 5 
along a rough, boulder-strewn river-bed, around a point 
of rough, jagged rocks, and out to a very wide gravelly 
flat through which the river had made itself a narrow 
channel. The flat swarmed with men, all of them busy, 
and very silent. 10 

Leading our pack-horses we approached the nearest 
pair of these men, and stood watching them curiously. 
One held a coarse screen of willow which he shook con¬ 
tinuously above a common cooking-pot, while the other 
slowly shovelled earth over this sieve. When the two 15 
pots, which with the shovel seemed to be all the tools 
these men possessed, had been half filled thus with the 
fine earth, the men carried them to the river. We fol¬ 
lowed. The miners carefully submerged the pots, and 
commenced to stir their contents with their fists. The 20 
light earth muddied the water, floated upward, and then 
flowed slowly over the rim of the pots and down the 
current. After a few minutes of this, they lifted the pots 
carefully, drained off the water, and started back. 

“May we look?” ventured Johnny. 25 

The taller man glanced at us, and our pack-horses, 
and nodded. This was the first time he had troubled 
to take a good look at us. The bottom of the pot was 
covered with fine black sand in which we caught the 
gleam and sparkle of something yellow. ' 30 

“Is that gold?” I asked, awed. 

“That’s gold,” the man repeated, his rather saturnine 


150 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


features lighting up with a grin. Then seeing our interest, 
he unbent a trifle. “We dry the sand, and then blow it 
away/’ he explained; and strode back to where his com¬ 
panion was impatiently waiting. 

5 We stumbled on over the rocks and debris. There 
were probably something near a hundred men at work 
in the gulch. We soon observed that the pot method was 
considered a very crude and simple way of getting out the 
gold. Most of the men carried iron pans full of the earth 
xo to the waterside, where, after submerging until the lighter 
earth had floated off, they slopped the remainder over 
the side with a peculiar twisting, whirling motion, leaving 
at last only the black sand — and the gold! These pan 
miners were in the great majority. But one group of 
is four men was doing business on a larger scale. They 
had constructed what looked like a very shallow baby- 
cradle on rockers into which they poured their earth and 
water. By rocking the cradle violently but steadily, 
they spilled the mud over the sides. Cleats had been 
20 nailed in the bottom to catch the black sand. 

We wandered about here and there, looking with all our 
eyes. • The miners were very busy and silent, but quite 
friendly, and allowed us to examine as much as we pleased 
the results of their operations. In the pots and cradles 
25 the yellow flake gold glittered plainly, contrasting with 
the black sand. In the pans, however, the residue spread 
out fan-shaped along the angle between the bottom and 
the side, and at the apex the gold lay heavy and beautiful 
all by itself. The men were generally bearded, tanned 
30 with working in this blinding sun, and plastered liberally 
with the red earth. We saw some queer sights, however j 
as when we came across a jolly pair dressed in what were 


THE GOLD TRAIL 


151 


the remains of ultra-fashionable garments up to and 
including plug hats! At one side working some distance 
from the stream were small groups of native Californians 
or Mexicans. They did not trouble to carry the earth 
all the way to the river; but, after screening it roughly, 5 
tossed it into the air above a canvas, thus winnowing 
out the heavier pay dirt 0 . I thought this must be very 
disagreeable. 

As we wandered about here and there among all these 
men so busily engaged, and with our own eyes saw pan 10 
after pan show gold, actual metallic guaranteed gold, such 
as rings and watches and money are made of, a growing 
excitement possessed us, the excitement of a small boy 
with a new and untried gun. We wanted to get at it 
ourselves. Only we did not know how. 15 

Finally Yank approached one of the busy miners. 

“Stranger,” said he, “we’re new to this. Maybe you 
can tell us where we can dig a little of this gold ourselves.” 

The man straightened his back,* to exhibit a roving 
humorous blue eye, with which he examined Yank from 20 
top to toe. 

“If,” said he, “it wasn’t for that eighteen-foot cannon 
you carry over your left arm, and a cold gray pair of eyes 
you carry in your head, I’d direct you up the sidehill 
yonder, and watch you sweat. As it is, you can work 25 
anywhere anybody else isn’t working. Start in!” 

“Can we dig next to you, then?” asked Yank, nodding 
at an unbroken piece of ground just upstream. 

The miner clambered carefully out of his waist-deep 
trench, searched his pockets, produced a pipe and tobacco. 30 
After lighting this he made Yank a low bow. 

“Thanks for the compliment; but I warn you, this 


152 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 

claim of mine is not very rich. I’m thinking of trying 
somewhere else.” 

“Don’t you get any gold?” 

“Oh, a few ounces a day.” 

5 “That suits me for a beginning,” said Yank decidedly. 
“Come on boys!” 

The miner hopped back into his hole, only to stick his 
head out again for the purpose of telling us: 

“Mind you keep fifteen feet away!” 
io With eager hands we slipped a pick and shovels from 
beneath the pack ropes, undid our iron bucket, and with¬ 
out further delay commenced feverishly to dig. 

— Stewart Edward White. 


TWENTY YEARS OF ARCTIC STRUGGLE 


On the 28th of February the various parties took their 
departure from Cape Heela, and following in the rear, 
Peary hurried on with all possible speed, hopeful of reach¬ 
ing the Pole at last. 

For some days the ice was in motion everywhere; but5 
it gradually became quieter, and as there was very little 
wind the travelling was particularly good. Full of im¬ 
patience as he tramped along, and grudging every moment 
given to rest, Peary dreaded lest he should meet with some 
obstacle, such as open water or impassable ice, that would io 
put an end to the journey northwards. 

Delayed by gales and open water, and driven out of his 
course seventy miles to the eastward, Peary was cut off 
from communication with his supporting parties; and 
finding that he could no longer depend upon them, he 15 
determined to make a dash for the Pole with the party, 
eight in all, and the supplies which he had with him. 

Abandoning everything not absolutely essential and 
bending every energy to set a record pace, they travelled 
thirty miles in a ten hours’ march. Storms of wind and 20 
snow added considerably to the difficulties of the journey, 
the strain of which told severely on both men and dogs. 

The 20th of April brought the weary travellers into a 
region of open leads 0 , bearing north and south. Resting 
here for a few hours, Peary and his companions resumed 25 
153 


154 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 

their march at midnight, pushing on with feverish haste 
to lessen the distance between them and the goal that was 
luring them on. Travelling as fast as they could till noon 
of the 21st, they then came to a final halt. 

5 Disappointed at once more having to stop before the 
object of all his striving had been reached, Peary would 
have liked to make the last dash with only one or two of 
his men; but he dared not do this in view of the condition 
of the ice, and reluctantly he had to confess that once again 
io the prize had eluded his grasp. Making observations, he 
found that they were in 87 ° 6' north latitude, the most 
northerly point that had yet been reached by man. 

Warned by the haggard faces of his comrades and the 
skeleton figures of the few remaining dogs, Peary saw that 
is no time must be lost in turning back. After hoisting a 
flag from the summit of the highest pinnacle, and leaving 
a bottle containing a record of the journey, the exhausted 
men turned their backs on the Pole, and began the weary 
march homeward. 

20 Trying as the outward march had been, the dangers of 
the return journey were even greater. Besides, there was 
no longer the excitement of possible victory to encourage 
the men in the face of hardships. Killing their dogs for 
food, and breaking up the sledges to provide fires for cook- 
25 ing, the tired and dispirited explorers pushed on till they 
found themselves stranded on an island of ice. Was this, 
then, to be the end of the enterprise, and were they to 
meet death in that cold and pitiless sea? Such a fate 
seemed inevitable. But just as they were preparing for 
30 the worst, two of the Eskimo scouts came hurrying back 
to the camp with the report that, a few miles farther on, the 
water was covered with a film of young ice, and that there 


TV/ENTY YEARS OF ARCTIC STRUGGLE 155 


was a possibility of their being able to cross on snow- 
shoes. 

It was a desperate chance, but they were prepared to 
take it; and carefully fixing on their snow-shoes, they 
made the venture, the lightest and most experienced 5 
Eskimo taking the lead, with the few remaining dogs 
attached to the long sledge following, “ and the rest of the 
party abreast, in widely extended skirmish line, some dis¬ 
tance behind the sledge.” They crossed in silence, the 
ice swaying beneath them as they skimmed along. What 10 
the result would be none could tell;, but they all felt the 
greatness of their peril. 

Peary himself confesses that this was the first and only 
time in all his Arctic experience that he felt doubtful as 
to what would happen. “ When near the middle of the 15 
lead,” he says, “the toe of one of my snow-shoes, as I slid 
forward, broke through twice in succession; then I thought 
to myself, ‘This is the finish.’ A little later there was 
a cry from some one in the line, but I dared not take my 
eyes from the steady gliding of my snow-shoes. When 2c 
we stepped upon the firm ice on the southern side of the 
lead, sighs of relief from the two men nearest me were 
distinctly audible. The cry I had heard had been from 
one of my men, whose toe, like mine, had broken through 
the ice.” The crossing had been made just in time, for, 25 
as the travellers looked round for a moment before turning 
their faces southward, they saw that the sheet of ice on 
which they had crossed was in two pieces. “ The lead 
was widening again.” 

All were safely across; but they were not yet out of30 
danger. Unable to find a route which they might traverse 
with any degree of safety, Peary and his men ascended a 


156 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


high mass of ice to have a better view of their surroundings, 
and to look for a way of escape. What they beheld from 
their elevated position might well have struck terror into 
the boldest heart. Before them extended “such a mass of 
5 shattered ice” as Peary had never seen before and hoped 
never to see again, “a confused mass of fragments, some 
only the size of paving-stones, others as large as the dome 
of the Capitol at Washington, but all rounded by the 
terrific grinding they had received.” 
io Once again death was looking them in the face, for it 
seemed an utter impossibility to find a path through that 
frozen wilderness. But as long as they could keep a foot¬ 
ing they determined to struggle on; and stumbling for¬ 
ward at every step, bruised and sore, they at last struck 
15 a better road. They made their way to Britannia Island 0 , 
and thence to Cape May and Cape Bryant. 

The brave party suffered much from want of food. For 
days on end they were on the verge of starvation. A hare 
that was shot gave them the first full meal for nearly 
20 forty days. With snow falling around them, and without 
tent or covering of any kind, they lay down on the ground 
to sleep. 

Waking in the morning as tired and hungry as ever, 
they found the tracks of musk-oxen 0 in the snow, and their 
25 hopes rose as they endeavoured to follow the trail. Sweep¬ 
ing the valley with their field-glass, they could see no sign 
of a living thing; but later on they espied several black 
dots at a distance, and knew that they had located the 
herd. Pushing on towards them, Peary and a companion 
30 lay down behind a big boulder to rest and gather strength, 
for they dared not risk a shot before they were sure of 
their aim. 



TWENTY YEARS OF ARCTIC STRUGGLE 157 


Resolving at last on an attack, the two men grasped 
their rifles, and, rushing out from behind their place of 
shelter, made straight for the animals, now less than two 
hundred yards away. An old bull that was standing 
guard gave the signal to charge, and in a minute the “ black s 
avalanche of thundering beasts” was bearing down on 
their enemies. 

Fortunately for Peary his shot went true, and the great 
bull fell dead. The maddened rush was stopped; and 
before the oxen could make their retreat over the ridges io 
six of their number lay dead upon the frozen ground; 
and for the next few days the party revelled in the delights 
of a continuous feast. 

Reaching the Roosevelt 0 at the end of July, the ex¬ 
pedition returned to America a few months later. After 15 
twenty years of heroic striving, Peary had again missed the 
prize; but the victory was postponed only for a little 
while. 


— J. Kennedy McLean. 


HENRY WARD BEECHER’S ACCOUNT OF 
HIS SPEECH IN MANCHESTER 


I went to my hotel, and when the day came on which 
I was to make my first speech, I struck out the notes of 
my speech in the morning; and then came up a kind of 
horror — “I don’t know whether I can do anything with 
5 an English audience — I have never had any experience 
with an English audience. My American ways, which 
are all well enough with Americans, may utterly fail here, 
and a failure in the cause of my country now and here is 
horrible beyond conception to me!” I think I never 
iowent through such a struggle of darkness and suffering 
in all my life as I did that afternoon. It was about the 
going down of the sun that God brought me to that state 
in which I said, “Thy will be done. I am willing to be 
annihilated; I am willing to fail if the Lord wants me to.” 
is I gave it all up into the hands of God, and rose up in a 
state of peace and serenity simply unspeakable, and when 
the coach came to take me down to Manchester Hall I 
felt no disturbance nor dreamed of anything but success. 

We reached the hall. The crowd was already beginning 
20 to be tumultuous, and I recollect thinking to myself as 
I stood there looking at them, “ I will control you! I came 
here for victory, and I will have it, by the help of God!” 
Well, I was introduced, and I must confess that the things 
that I had done and suffered in my own country, according 
158 


THE SPEECH IN MANCHESTER 


159 


to what the chairman who introduced me said, amazed 
me. The speaker was very English on the subject, and 
I learned that I belonged to an heroic band, and all that 
sort of thing, with Abolitionism mixed in, and so on. By 
the way, I think it was there that I was introduced as the 5 
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher Stowe. But as soon as I began 
to speak the great audience began to show its teeth, and 
I had not gone on fifteen minutes before an unparalleled 
scene of confusion and interruption occurred. No Ameri¬ 
can that has not seen an English mob can form any con- 10 
ception of one. I have seen all sorts of camp meetings 
and experienced all kinds of public speaking on the stump; 

I have seen the most disturbed meetings in New York 
City, and they were all of them as twilight to midnight 
compared with an English hostile audience. For in 15 
England the meeting does not belong to the parties that 
call it, but to whoever chooses to go; and if they can take 
it out of your hands, it is considered fair play. This meet¬ 
ing had a very large multitude of men in it who came 
there for the purpose of destroying the meeting and carry- 20 
ing it the other way when it came to a vote. 

I took the measure of the audience and said to myself, 
“About one fourth of this audience are opposed to me, 
and about one fourth will be rather in sympathy; and 
my business now is, not to appeal to that portion that is 25 
opposed to me nor to those that are already on my side, 
but to bring over the middle section.” How to do this 
was a problem. The question was, who could hold out 
longest. There were five or six storm-centres, boiling and 
whirling at the same time: here some one pounding on a 30 
group with his umbrella and shouting, “Sit down there;” 
over yonder a row between two or three combatants; 


160 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


somewhere else a group all yelling together at the top of 
their voices. It was like talking to a storm at sea. But 
there were the newspaper reporters just in front, and I 
said to them, “Now, gentlemen, be kind enough to take 
5 down what I say. It will ,be in sections, but I will have it 
connected by and by.” I threw my notes away, and 
entered on a discussion of the value of freedom as opposed 
to slavery in the manufacturing interest, arguing that 
freedom everywhere increases a man’s necessities, and 
io what he needs he buys, and that it was, therefore, to the 
interest of the manufacturing community to stand by 
the side of labor through the country. I never was more 
self-possessed and never in more perfect good temper, 
and I never was more determined that my hearers should 
15 feel the curb before I got through with them. The up¬ 
roar would come in on this side and on that, and they 
would put insulting questions and make all sorts of calls 
to me, and I would wait until the noise had subsided, and 
then get in about five minutes of talk. The reporters 
20 would get that down, and then up would come another 
noise. Occasionally I would see things that amused me 
and would laugh outright, and the crowd would stop to 
see what I was laughing at. Then I would sail in again 
with a sentence or two. A good many times the crowd 
25 threw up questions which I caught at and answered back. 
I may as well put in here one thing that amused me hugely. 
There were baize doors that opened both ways into side 
alleys, and there was a huge, burly Englishman standing 
right in front of one of those doors and roaring like a bull 
30 of Bashan; one of the policemen swung his elbow around 
and hit him in the belly and knocked him through the door¬ 
way, so that the last part of the bawl was outside in the 


THE SPEECH IN MANCHESTER 


161 


alleyway; it struck me so ludicrously to think how the 
fellow must have looked when he found himself “hollering” 
outside that I could not refrain from laughing outright. 
The audience immediately stopped its uproars, wondering 
what I was laughing at, and that gave me another chance, 5 
and I caught it.. So we kept on for about an hour and a 
half before they got so far calmed down that I could go on 
peaceably with my speech. They liked the pluck. Eng¬ 
lishmen like a man that can stand on his feet and give 
and take; and so for the last hour I had pretty clear 10 
sailing. The next morning every great paper in England 
had the whole speech. I think it was the design of the 
men there to break me down on that first speech, by fair 
means or foul, feeling that if they could do that it would 
be trumpeted all over the land. I said to them then and 15 
there, “Gentlemen, you may break me down now, but I 
have registered a vow that I will never return home until 
I have been heard in every county and principal town in the 
Kingdom of Great Britain. I am not going to be broken 
down nor put down. I am going to be heard, and my 20 
country shall be vindicated.” Nobody knows better 
than I did what it is to feel that every interest that touches 
the heart of a Christian man and a patriotic man and a 
lover of liberty is being assailed wantonly, to stand between 
one nation and your own, and to feel that you are in a 25 
situation in which your country rises or falls with you. 
And God was behind it all; I felt it and knew it; and when 
I got through and the vote was called off, you would have 
thought it was a tropical thunderstorm that swept through 
that hall as the ayes were thundered, while the noes were 30 
an insignificant and contemptible minority. It had all 
gone on our side, and such enthusiasm I never saw. I 


162 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 

think it was there that when I started to go down into 
the rooms below to get an exit, a big burly Englishman 
in the gallery wanted to shake hands with me, and I could 
not reach him, and he called out, “Shake my unbrella!” 
5 and he reached it over; I shook it, and as I did so he 
shouted, “By Jock! Nobody shall touch that umbrella 
again \” 


— Henry Ward Beecher. 


A GREEN DONKEY DRIVER 


There dwelt an old man in Monastier®, of rather un¬ 
sound intellect according to some, much followed by street- 
boys, and known to fame as Father Adam. Father Adam 
had a cart, and to draw the cart a diminutive donkey, 
not much bigger than a dog, the color of a mouse, with 5 
a kindly eye and a determined under-jaw. There was 
something neat and high-bred, a Quakerish elegance, 
about the rogue that hit my fancy on the spot. 

Our first interview was in Monastier market-place. 
To prove her good temper, one child after another was to 
set upon her back to ride, and one after another went 
head over heels into the air; until a want of confidence 
began to reign in youthful bosoms, and the experiment 
was discontinued from a dearth of subjects. I was already 
backed by a deputation® of my friends; but as if this were is 
not enough, all the buyers and sellers came around and 
helped me in the bargain; and the ass and I and Father 
Adam were the centre of a hubbub for near half an hour. 

At length she passed into my service for the consideration 
of sixty-five francs and a glass of brandy. The sack had al- 20 
ready cost eighty francs and two glasses of beer; so that 
Modestine, as I instantly baptized her, was upon all ac¬ 
counts the cheaper article. 

By the advice of a fallacious® local saddler, a leather 
pad was made for me with rings to fasten on my bundle; 2.5 
163 


164 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


and I thoughtfully completed my kit and arranged my 
toilette. By Tray of armory and utensils, I took a re¬ 
volver, a little spirit lamp and pan, a lantern and some 
halfpenny candles, a jack-knife and a large leather flask. 

5 The main cargo consisted of two entire changes of warm 
clothing, besides my travelling wear of country yelveteen, 
pilot coat, and knitted spencer, some books, and my rail¬ 
way-rug, which, being also in the form of a bag, made me 
a double castle for cold nights. The permanent larder 
io was represented by cakes of chocolate and tins of Bologna 
sausage. All this, except what I carried about my person, 
was easily stowed into the sheepskin bag; and by good 
fortune I threw in my empty knapsack, rather for con¬ 
venience of carriage than from any thought that I should 
15 want it on my journey. For more immediate needs, I 
took a leg of cold mutton, a bottle of Beaujolais 0 , an 
empty bottle to carry milk, an egg-beater, and a con¬ 
siderable quantity of black bread and white for myself 
and donkey. 

20 On the day of my departure I was up a little after five; 
by six we began to load the donkey; and ten minutes 
after, my hopes were in the dust. The pad would not 
stay on Modestine’s back for half a moment. I returned 
it to its maker, with whom I had so contumelious 0 a passage 
25 that the street outside was crowded from wall to wall 
with gossips looking on and listening. The pad changed 
hands with much vivacity; perhaps it would be more 
descriptive to say that we threw it at each other’s heads; 
and, at any rate, we were very warm and unfriendly, and 
30 spoke with a deal of freedom. 

I had a common donkey pack-saddle fitted upon Modes- 
tine; and once more loaded her with my effects. 


A GREEN DONKEY DRIVER 


165 


The bell of Monastier was just striking nine as I got 
quit of these preliminary troubles and descended the hill 
through the common. As long as I was within sight of 
the windows, a secret shame and the fepr of some laughable 
defeat withheld me from tampering with Modestine. She 5 
tripped along upon her four small hoofs with a sober 
daintiness of gait; from time to time she shook her ears 
or her tail; and she looked so small under the bundle that 
my mind misgave me. We got across the ford without 
difficulty — there was no doubt about the matter, she 10 
was docility itself — and once on the other bank, where 
the road begins to mount through pine-woods, I took in 
my right hand the unhallowed staff, and with a qualdng 
spirit applied it to the donkey. Modestine brisked up 
her pace for perhaps three steps, and then relapsed into 15 
her former minuet 0 . Another application had the same 
effect, and so with the third. I am worthy the name of 
an Englishman, and it goes against my conscience to lay 
my hand rudely on a female. I desisted, and looked her 
all over from head to foot; the poor brute’s knees were20 
trembling and her breathing was distressed; it was plain 
that she could not go faster on a hill. God forbid, thought 
I, that I should brutalize this innocent creature; let her 
go at her own pace, and let me patiently follow. 

What that pace was, there is no word mean enough to 25 
describe, it was something as much slower than a' walk as 
a walk is slower than a run; it kept me hanging on each 
foot for an incredible length of time; in five minutes it 
exhausted the spirit and set up a fever in all the muscles 
of the leg. And yet I had to keep close at hand and meas- 30 
ure my advance exactly upon hers; for if I dropped a few 
yards in to the rear, or went on a few yards ahead, Mo- 


166 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


destine came instantly to a halt and began to browse. The 
thought that this was to last from here to Alais° nearly 
broke my heart. Of all conceivable journeys, this 
promised to be the most tedious. I tried to tell myself 
5 it was a lovely day; I tried to charm my foreboding 
spirit with tobacco; but I had a vision ever present to me 
of the long long roads, up hill and down dale, and a pair 
of figures ever infinitesimally moving, foot by foot, a 
yard to the minute, and, like things enchanted in a night- 
io mare, approaching np nearer to the goal. 

In the meantime there came up behind us a tall peasant, 
perhaps forty years of age, of an ironical snuffy counte¬ 
nance, and arrayed in the green tail-coat of the country. 
He overtook us hand over hand, and stopped to consider 
15 our pitiful advance. 

“Your donkey,” says he, “Is very old?’’ 

I told him, I believed not. 

Then, he supposed, we had come far. 

I told him we had but newly left Monastier. 

20 “ Et vous marchez comme pa°! ” cried he; and, throwing 

back his head, he laughed long and heartily. I watched 
him, half prepared to feel offended, until he had satisfied 
his mirth; and then, “You must have no pity on these 
animals,” said he; and, plucking a switch out of a thicket, 
25 he began to lace Modestine about the stern works, uttering 
a cry. The rogue pricked up her ears and broke into a 
good round pace, which she kept up without flagging, and 
without exhibiting the least symptom of distress, as long 
as the peasant kept beside us. Her former panting and 
30 shaking had been, I regret to say, a piece of comedy. 

My deus ex machina 0 , before he left me, supplied some 
excellent, if inhumane, advice; presented me with the 




A GREEN DONKEY DRIVER 


167 


switch, which he declared she would feel more tenderly 
than my cane; and finally taught me the true cry or masonic 
word of donkey-drivers, “Proot!” All the time, he re¬ 
garded me with a comical incredulous air, as I might have 
smiled over his orthography or his green tail-coat. But 5 
it was not my turn for the moment. 

I hurried over my midday meal, and was early forth 
again. But, alas, as we climbed the interminable hill 
upon the other side, “Proot!” seemed to have lost its 
virtue. I prooted like a lion, I prooted melliflously 0 like ic 
a sucking-dove; but Modestine would be neither softened 
nor intimidated. She' held doggedly to her pace; nothing 
but a blow would move her, and that only for a second. 

I must follow at her heels, incessantly belaboring. A 
moment’s pause in this ignoble toil, and she relapsed into 15 
her own private gait. I think I never heard of any one 
in as mean a situation. I must reach the lake of Bouchet, 
where I meant to camp, before sundown; and, to have 
even a hope of this, I must instantly maltreat this un¬ 
complaining animal. The sound of my blows sickened 20 
me. Once, when I looked at her, she had a faint resem¬ 
blance to a lady of my acquaintance who formerly loaded 
me with kindness; and this increased my horror of my 
cruelty. 

It was blazing hot up the valley, windless, with vehe- 25 
ment sun upon my shoulders; and I had to labor so con¬ 
sistently with my stick that the sweat ran into my eyes. 
Every five minutes, too, the pack, the basket, and the 
pilot-coat would take an ugly slew 0 to one side or the other; 
and I had to stop Modestine, just when I had got her to 30 
a tolerable pace of about two miles an hour, to tug, push, 
shoulder, and re-adjust the load. And at last, in the 


168 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


village of Ussel 0 , saddle and all, the whole hypothec 0 
turned round and grovelled in the dust, below the donkey’s 
belly. She none better pleased, incontinently drew up 
and seemed to smile; and a party of one man, two women, 
s and two children came up, and, standing round me in a 
half-circle, encouraged her by their example. 

I disposed it, Heaven knows how, so as to be mildly 
portable, and then proceeded to steer Modestine through 
the village. She tried, as was indeed her invariable habit, 
io to enter every house and every courtyard in the whole 
length, and, encumbered as I was, without a hand to help 
myself, no words can render an idea of my difficulties. 
A priest, with six or seven others, was examining a church 
in process of repair, and his acolytes 0 laughed loudly as 
15 they saw my plight. I remembered having laughed my¬ 
self when I had seen good men struggling with adversity 
in the person of a jackass, and the recollection filled me with 
penitence. That was in my old light days, before this 
trouble came upon me. God knows at least that I shall 
20 never laugh again, thought I. But O, what a cruel thing 
is a farce to those engaged in it! 

A little out of the village, Modestine, filled with the 
demon, set her heart upon a by-road, and positively re¬ 
fused to leave it. I dropped all my bundles, and, I am 
25 ashamed to say, struck the poor sinner twice across the 
face. It was pitiful to see her lift up her head with shut 
eyes, as if waiting for another blow. I came very near 
crying; but I did a wiser thing than that, and sat squarely 
down by the roadside to consider my situation. Modes- 
30 tine in the meanwhile, munched some black bread with a 
contrite hypocritical air. It was plain that I must make 
a sacrifice to the gods of shipwreck, I threw away the 


A GREEN DONKEY DRIVER 


169 


empty bottles destined to carry milk; I threw away my 
own white bread, and, disdaining to act by general average, 
kept the black bread for Modestine; lastly I threw away 
the cold leg of mutton and the egg whisk, although this 
last was dear to my heart. 5 

Thus I found room for everything in the basket, and even 
stowed the boating-coat on the top. By means of an end 
of cord I slung it under one arm; and although the cord 
cut my shoulder, and the jacket hung almost to the 
ground, it was with a heart greatly lightened that I set io 
forth. — Robert Louis Stevenson (adapted). 


A NIGHT IN THE PINES 


The trees were not old, but they grew thickly round 
the glade: there was no outlook, except northeastward 
upon distant hill-tops, or straight upward to the sky; 
and the encampment felt secure and private like a room. 

5 By the time I had made my arrangements and fed Modes- 
tine, the day was already beginning to decline. I buckled 
myself to the knees into my sack and made a hearty meal; 
and as soon as the sun went down, I pulled my cap over 
my eyes and fell asleep. 

io Night is a dead monotonous period under a roof; but 
in the open world it passes lightly, with its stars and dews 
and perfumes, and the hours are marked by changes in 
the face of Nature. What seems a kind of temporal 
death to people choked between walls and curtains, is 
15 only a light and living slumber to the man who sleeps 
afield. All night long he can hear Nature breathing 
deeply and freely; even as she takes her rest she turns 
and smiles; and there is one stirring hour unknown to 
those who dwell in houses, when a wakeful influence goes 
20 abroad over the sleeping hemisphere, and all the out-door 
world are on their feet. It is then that the cock first 
crows, not this time to announce the dawn, but like a 
cheerful watchman speeding the course of night. Cattle 
awake on the meadows; sheep break their fast on dewy 
25 hillsides, and change to a new lair among the ferns; and 

170 




A NIGHT IN THE PINES 


171 


houseless men, who have lain down with the fowls, open 
their dim eyes and behold the beauty of the night. 

The stars were clear, colored, and jewel-like, but not 
frosty. A faint silvery vapor stood for the Milky Way. 
All around me the black fir-points stood upright and 5 
stock-still. By the whiteness of the pack-saddle, I could 
see Modestine walking round and round at the length of 
her tether; I could hear her steadily munching at the 
sward; but there was not another sound, save the inde¬ 
scribable quiet talk of the runnel over the stones. I lay 10 
lazily smoking and studying the color of the sky, as we 
call the void of space, where it showed a reddish gray 
behind the pines to where it showed a glossy blue-black 
between the stars. As if to be more like a pedler, I wear 
a silver ring. This I could see faintly shining as I raised 15 
or lowered the cigarette; and at each whiff the inside of 
my hand was illuminated, and became for a second the 
highest light in the landscape. 

A faint wind, more like a moving coolness than a stream 
of air, passed down the glade from time to time; so that 20 
even in my great chamber the air was being renewed all 
night long. I thought with horror of the inn at Chasser- 
ades and the congregated night caps; with horror of the 
nocturnal prowesses of clerks and students, of hot theatres, 
and passkeys and close rooms. I have not often enjoyed 25 
a more serene possession of myself, nor felt more inde¬ 
pendent of material aids. The outer world, from which 
we cower into our houses, seemed after all a gentle, habit¬ 
able place; and night after night a man’s bed, it seemed, 
was laid and waiting for him in the fields, where God keeps 30 
an open house. 

As I lay thus, between content and longing, a faint 


172 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


noise stole towards me through the pines. I thought, at 
first, it was the crowing of cocks or the barking of dogs 
at some very distant farm; but steadily and gradually 
it took articulate shape in my ears, until I became aware 
5 that a passenger was going by upon the high-road in the 
valley, and singing loudly as he went. There was more 
of good-will than grace in his performance; but he trolled 
with ample lungs; and the sound of his voice took hold 
upon the hillside and set the air shaking in the leafy glens, 
io I have heard people passing by night in sleeping cities; 
some of them sang; one, I remember, played loudly on tfie 
bagpipes. I have heard the rattle of a cart or carriage 
spring up suddenly after hours of stillness, and pass for 
some minutes, within the range of my hearing as I lay 
is abed. There is a romance about all who are abroad in the 
black hours, and with something of a thrill we try to guess 
their business. But here the romance was double; first 
this glad passenger, lit internally with wine, who sent up 
his voice in music through the night; and then I, on the 
20 other hand, buckled into my sack, and smoking alone in the 
pine-woods between four and five thousand feet towards 
the stars. 


— Robert Louis Stevenson. 


LIFE IN OLD NEW YORK 


In those good old days of simplicity and sunshine, a 
passion for cleanliness was the leading principle in do¬ 
mestic economy, and the universal test of an able house¬ 
wife. 

The front door was never opened, except for marriages, 5 
funerals. New Year’s Day, the festival of St. Nicholas, 
or some such great occasion. It was ornamented with a 
gorgeous brass knocker, which was curiously wrought,— 
sometimes in the device of a dog, and sometimes in that of 
a lion’s head, — and daily burnished with such religious 10 
zeal that it was often worn out by the very precautions 
taken for its preservation. 

The whole house was constantly in a state of inunda¬ 
tion 0 , under the discipline of mops and brooms and scrub¬ 
bing brushes; and the good housewives of those days were 15 
a kind of amphibious 0 animal, delighting exceedingly to be 
dabbling in water, — insomuch that an historian of the 
day gravely tells us that many of his townswomen grew 
to have webbed fingers, “like unto ducks.” 

The grand parlor was the sanctum, where the passion 20 
for cleaning was indulged without control. No one was 
permitted to enter this sacred apartment, except the mis¬ 
tress and her confidential maid, who visited it once a week 
for the purpose of giving it a thorough cleaning. On these 
occasions they always took the precaution of leaving their 25 
173 


174 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


shoes at the door, and entering devoutly 0 in their stocking 
feet. 

After scrubbing the floor, sprinkling it with fine white 
sand, — which was curiously stroked with a broom into 
5 angles and curves and rhomboids, — after washing the 
windows, rubbing and polishing the furniture, and putting 
a new branch of evergreens in the fireplace, the windows 
were again closed to keep out the flies, and the room was 
kept carefully locked, until the revolution of time brought 
io round the weekly cleaning day. 

As to the family, they always entered in at the gate, 
and generally lived in the kitchen. To have seen a nu¬ 
merous household assembled round the fire, one would 
have imagined that he was transported to those happy 
15 days of primeval simplicity which float before our im¬ 
aginations like golden visions. 

The fireplaces were of a truly patriarchal magnitude, 
where the whole family, old and young, master and ser¬ 
vant, black and white, — nay, even the very cat and dog, 
20— enjoyed a community of privilege, and had each a right 
to a corner. Here the old burgher would sit in perfect 
silence, puffing his pipe, looking in the fire with half¬ 
shut eyes, and thinking of nothing, for hours together; 
the good wife on the opposite side, would employ herself 
25 diligently in spinning yarn or knitting stockings. 

The young folks would crowd around the hearth, lis¬ 
tening with breathless attention to some old crone of a 
negro, who was the oracle of the family, and who, perched 
like a raven in a corner of the chimney, would croak forth, 
30 for a long winter afternoon, a string of incredible stories 
about New England witches, grisly ghosts, and bloody en¬ 
counters among Indians. 


LIFE IN OLD NEW YORK 


175 


In these happy days, fashionable parties were generally 
confined to the higher classes, or noblesse; that is to say, 
such as kept their own cow r s, and drove their own wagons. 
The company. usually assembled at three o’clock, and 
went away about six, unless it was in winter time, when s 
the fashionable hours were a little earlier, that the ladies 
might reach home before dark. 

The tea table was crowned with a huge earthen dish, 
well stored with slices, of fat pork, fried brown, cut up into 
morsels, and swimming in gravy. The company seated ic 
round the genial board, evinced their dexterity in launch¬ 
ing their forks at the fattest pieces in this mighty dish, — ’ 
in much the same manner that sailors harpoon porpoises 
at sea, or our Indians spear salmon in the lakes. 

Sometimes the table was graced with immense apple is 
pies, or saucers full of preserved peaches and pears; 
but it was always sure to boast an enormous dish 
of balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog’s fat and 
called doughnuts or olykoeks, a delicious kind of cake, 
at present little known in this city, except in genuine 20 
Dutch families. 

The tea was served out of a majestic Delft teapot, 
ornamented with paintings of fat little Dutch shepherds 
and shepherdesses tending pigs, — with boats sailing in 
the air, and houses built in the clouds, and sundry other 25 
ingenious Dutch fancies. The beaux distinguished them¬ 
selves by their adroitness in replenishing this pot from a 
huge copper teakettle. To sweeten the beverage, a lump 
of sugar was laid beside each cup, and the company alter¬ 
nately nibbled and sipped with great decorum; until an30 
improvement was introduced by a shrewd and economic 
old lady, which was to suspend, by a string from the ceiling, 


176 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


a large lump directly over the tea table, so that it could be 
swung from mouth to mouth. 

At these primitive tea parties, the utmost propriety 
and dignity prevailed, — no flirting nor coquetting; no 
5 romping of young ladies; no self-satisfied struttings of 
wealthy gentlemen, with their brains in their pockets, 
nor amusing conceits and monkey divertisements 0 of 
smart young gentlemen, with no brains at all. 

On the contrary, the young ladies seated themselves 
io demurely in their rush-bottomed chairs, and knit their 
own woolen stockings; nor ever opened their lips, except¬ 
ing to say yah, Mynheer, or yah, Vrowtv 0 , to any question 
that was asked them; behaving in all things like decent, 
well-educated damsels. As to the gentlemen, each of 
15 them tranquilly smoked his pipe, and seemed lost in con¬ 
templation of the blue and white tiles with which the 
fireplaces were decorated; wherein sundry passages of 
Scripture were piously portrayed. Tobit° and his dog 
figured to great advantage; Haman° swung conspicu- 
2oously on his gibbet; and Jonah appeared most manfully 
leaping from the whale’s mouth, like Harlequin 0 through 
a barrel of fire. 

The parties broke up without noise and without con¬ 
fusion. They were carried home by their own carriages, 
25 that is to say, by the vehicles nature had provided them, 
excepting such of the wealthy as could afford to keep a 
wagon. 


— Washington Irving. 


THE BAZAAR IN MOROCCO 


How can I describe the swarming crowds of the bazaar, 
the constant, noiseless stir of all those bournouses 0 in the 
semi-darkness! The little labyrinthine avenues cross 
each other in every direction, covered with their ancient 
roofing of wood, or else with trellises of cane, over which s 
grape-vines are trained. Fronting on these passages are 
the shops, something like holes in a wall as regards size, 
and in them the turbaned dealers sit squatted, stately and 
impassible, among their rare knick-knacks. Shops where 
the same kind of goods are sold are grouped in quarters io 
by themselves. There is the street of the dealers in cloth¬ 
ing, where the booths are bright with pink, blue, and 
orange silks, and with brocades of gold and silver, and 
where ladies, veiled and draped like phantoms, are posted. 
There is the street of the leather merchants, where thou- 15 
sands of sets of harness of every conceivable color, for 
horses, mules, and asses, are hanging from the walls; 
there are all sorts of objects of strange and ancient fashion 
for use in the chase or in war: powder-horns inlaid with 
gold and silver, embroidered belts for sword and musket, 20 
travelling bags for caravans and amulets 0 to charm away 
the dangers of the desert. 

Then there is the street of the workers in brass, where 
from morning till night is heard the sound of hammers at 
work on the arabesques 0 of vases and plates; the street 25 


178 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


of the papooch embroiderers, where all the little dens are 
filled with velvet, pearls and gold; the street of the furni¬ 
ture decorators; that of the naked, grimy blacksmiths; 
that of the dyers, with purple or indigo-bedaubed arms. 

5 Finally, the quarter of the armorers, who make long 
flint-lock muskets, thin as cane-stalks, the silver inlaid 
butt of which is made excessively large so as to receive the 
shoulder. The Moroccans® never have the slightest idea 
of changing the form adopted by their ancestors, and the 
io shape of their musket is as immutable as all things else are 
in this country; it seems like a dream to see them at this 
day making such quantities of these old-fashioned arms. 

A stifled hum of unceasing activity arises from the mass 
of people, clad in their gray woolen robes, thus congre- 
15 gated from afar to buy and sell all sorts of queer small 
objects. There are sorcerers performing their incanta¬ 
tions; bands of armed men dancing the war-dance, with 
firing of guns, to the sound of the tambourines and the 
wailing pipes; beggars exposing their sores; negro slaves 
20wheeling their loads; asses rolling in the dust. The 
ground, of the same grayish shade as the multitude upon 
it, is covered with all kinds of filth: animal refuse, chicken 
feathers, dead mice; and the crowd tread down the re¬ 
volting mass under their trailing slippers. 

25 How far removed is all this life from ours! The ac¬ 
tivity of this people is as foreign to us as its stagnation 
and its slumberousness. An indifference which I cannot 
explain, a disregard of everything, to us quite unknown, 
characterized these burnous-clad folk even in their greatest 
30 stir and bustle. The cowled heads of the men and the 
veiled heads of the women are occupied by one unchanging 
dream, even in the midst of their bargaining; five times 


THE BAZAAR IN MOROCCO 


179 


a day they offer up their prayer, and their thoughts turn, 
to the exclusion of all besides, upon eternity and death. 
You will see squalid beggars with the eyes of an inspired 
man; ragged fellows who have noble attitudes and faces 
of prophets. s 

People of all the different tribes meet and mingle 
promiscuously among themselves. Negroes from the 
Soudan 0 and light-colored Arabs: Mussulmans 0 without 
conviction of the faith, whose women veil only their 
mouths; and the green-turbaned Derkaouas, merciless io 
fanatics, who turn their heads and spit upon the ground 
at the sight of a Christian. Every day the “ Holy woman,” 
with wild eyes and vermilion-painted cheeks, is to be seen 
prophesying in some public place. And the “Holy man,” 
too, who is incessantly walking like the wandering Jew, 15 
always in a hurry and all the while mumbling his prayers. 

What queer old jewelry finds a market in Mequinez 0 ! 
When could the things ever have been new? — There is 
not one which has not an air of extreme antiquity; old 
rings for wrists or ankles, worn smooth by centuries of 20 
rubbing against human flesh; great clasps for fastening 
veils; little old silver bottles with coral pendants to hold 
the black dye with which the eyes are painted, with hooks 
to fasten them at the belt; boxes to enclose Korans 0 , 
carved in arabesques and bearing Solomon’s seal; old 25 
necklaces of gold sequins, defaced by wear on the necks 
of women long since dead; and quantities of those large 
trefoils 0 in hammered silver, enclosing a green stone, 
which are hung about the neck to avert the bad effect of 
the evil-eye. These things are all spread out on little 3° 
dirty worm-eaten tables, in front of the squatting mer¬ 
chants, in the little dens in the old walls. 


180 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


The bazaar is very near the Jewish quarter, and several 
of that race, knowing us to be here, come and offer us 
trinkets, bracelets, quaint old rings and emerald ear¬ 
rings, —■ things which they take from the pockets of their 
5 black robes with furtive airs, after having cast distrustful 
looks around. We are also approached by the dealers in the 
fine woolen rugs and carpets of R’bat, which they throw 
upon the ground, among the dust, refuse, and bones, to show 
us the rare designs and splendid colors of their wares, 
io The sun is getting low; it is time for us to end our 
bargaining, which has not been conducted without some 
wrangling, and to leave the sacred city which we are to 
behold no more, and betake ourselves to our tents. 

Before passing the last gate of the enclosure, we halt 
is in a sort of small bazaar, of whose existence we were not 
previously aware. It is that of the bric-a-brac mer¬ 
chants, and the Lord only knows what queer oddities this 
kind of shop can display. Ancient arms constitute the 
principal stock in trade; rusty yataghans, long Souss 
20 muskets; then old leather amulets for war or for the 
chase; ridiculous powder-horns, and also musical in¬ 
struments; guitars covered with snake-skin, pipes and 
tambourines. To keep the rubbish which they are selling 
in countenance, no doubt, the dealers are mostly all broken- 
25 down, worn-out, old men. 

Undoubtedly the people in this bazaar are very poor 
and have need to sell their goods, for they crowd around 
us and press us with their wares. We make several sur¬ 
prising bargains. As the sky grows yellow and the cold 
30 breeze of sunset springs up, we are still there, near the 
lonely gate, beneath the branches of the old trees. 

— Pierre Loti. 


A BATTLE OF THE ANTS 


One day when I went out to my wood-pile, or rather 
my pile of stumps, I observed two large ants, the one red, 
the other much larger, nearly half an inch long and black, 
fiercely contending with one another. Having once got 
hold they never let go, but struggled and wrestled and 5 
rolled on the chips incessantly. Looking farther, I was 
surprised to find that the chips were covered with such 
combatants, that it was not a “ duellum,” but a “bellum, 0 ” 
a war between two races of ants, the red always pitted 
against the black, and frequently two red ones to one io 
black. The legions of these Myrmidons 0 covered all the 
hills and vales in my wood-yard, and the ground was 
already strewn with the dead and dying, both red and 
black. It was the only battle which I had ever witnessed, 
the only battle-field I ever trod while the battle was rag- i 5 
ing; internecine 0 war; the red republicans on the one hand 
and the black imperialists on the other hand. On every 
side they were engaged in deadly combat, yet without 
any noise that I could hear, and human soldiers never 
fought so resolutely. I watched a couple that were fast 20 
locked in each other’s embraces, in a little sunny valley 
amid the chips; now at noon-day prepared to fight till 
the sun went down, or life went out. The smaller red 
champion had fastened himself like a vice to his ad¬ 
versary’s front, and through all the tumblings on that 25 
181 


182 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


field never for an instant ceased to gnaw at one of his 
feelers near the root, having already caused the other to 
go by the board; while the stronger black one dashed him 
from side to side, and, as I saw on looking nearer, had 
5 already divested him of several of his members. They 
fought with more pertinacity 0 than bull-dogs. Neither 
manifested the least disposition to retreat. It was evident 
that their battle-cry was Conquer or die. In the mean¬ 
while there came along a single red ant on the hillside of 
iothis valley, evidently full of excitement, who either had 
dispatched his foe, or had not yet taken part in the battle; 
probably the latter, for he had lost none of his limbs; 
whose mother had charged him to return with his shield 
or upon it.° He drew near with rapid pace till he stood 
is on his guard within half an inch of the combatants; then, 
watching his opportunity, he sprang upon the black war¬ 
rior, and commenced his operations near the root of his 
right fore-leg, leaving the foe to select among his own 
members; and so there were three united for life, as if a 
20 new kind of attraction had been invented which put all 
other locks and cements to shame. I should not have 
wondered by this time to find that they had their respec¬ 
tive musical bands stationed on some eminent chip, and 
playing their national airs the while, to excite the slow and 
25 cheer the dying combatants. I was myself excited some¬ 
what even as if they had been men. The more you think 
of it, the less the difference. 

I took up the chip on which the three I have particularly 
described were struggling, carried it into my house, and 
30 placed it under a tumbler on my window-sill, in order to 
see the issue. Holding a microscope to the first-mentioned 
red ant, I saw that, though he was assiduously 0 gnawing 


A BATTLE OF THE ANTS 


183 


at the near foreleg of his enemy, having severed his re¬ 
maining feeler, his own breast was all torn away, exposing 
what vitals he had there to the jaws of the black warrior, 
whose breast-plate was apparently too thick for him to 
pierce; and the dark carbuncles of the sufferer’s eyes 5 
shone with ferocity such as war only could excite. They 
struggled half an hour longer under the'tumbler, and when 
I looked again the black soldier had severed the heads 
of his foes from their bodies, and the still living heads 
were hanging on either side of him like ghastly trophies at io 
his saddle-bow, still apparently as firmly fastened as ever, 
and he was endeavoring with feeble struggles, being with¬ 
out feelers and with only the remnant of a leg, and I know 
not how many other wounds, to divest himself of them; 
which at length, after half an hour more, he accomplished, is 
I raised the glass, and he went off over the window-sill in 
that crippled state. Whether he finally survived that 
combat, and spent the ramainder of his days in some 
Hotel des Invalides 0 , I do not know; but I thought that 
his industry would not be worth much thereafter. I never 20 
learned which party was victorious, nor the cause of the 
war; but I felt for the rest of that day as if I had had my 
feelings excited and harrowed by witnessing the struggle, 
the ferocity and carnage, of a human battle before my door. 

— Henry Thoreau. 


AN AFRICAN PET 


Toward twelve o’clock, when we were crossing a kind 
of high table-land, we heard the cry of a young animal, 
which we all recognized to be. a nshiego mbouve 0 . Then 
all my troubles at once went away out of mind, and I no 
5 longer felt either sick or hungry. 

We crawled through the bush as silently as possible, 
still hearing the baby-like cry. At last, coming out into 
a little cleared space, we saw something running along the 
ground toward where we stood concealed. When it came 
io nearer, we saw it was a female nshiego running on all 
fours, with a young one clinging to her breasts. She was 
eagerly eating some berries, and with one arm supported 
her little one. 

Querlaouen, who had the fairest chance, fired, and 
15 brought her down. She dropped without a struggle. 
The poor little one cried, “Hew! hew! hew!” and clung 
to the dead body, burying its head there in its alarm at 
the report of the gun. 

We hurried up in great glee to secure our capture. I 
20 cannot tell my surprise when I saw that the nshiego baby’s 
face was pure white — very white indeed — pallid, but 
as white as a white child’s. 

I looked at the mother, but found her black as soot in 
the face. The little one was about a foot in height. One 
25 of the men threw a cloth over its head and secured it till 

184 


AN AFRICAN PET 


185 


we could make it fast with a rope; for, though it was 
quite young, it could walk. The old one was of the bald- 
headed kind, of which I had secured the first known 
specimen some months before. 

I immediately ordered a return to the camp, which we 5 
reached toward evening. The little nshiego had been 
all this time separated from its dead mother, and now 
when it was put near her body, a most touching scene 
ensued. The little .fellow ran instantly to her, but, 
touching her on the face and breast, saw evidently that 10 
some great change had happened. For a few minutes he 
caressed her, as though trying to coax her back to life. 
Then he seemed to lose all hope. His little eyes became 
very sad, and he broke out in a long, plaintive wail, “ Ooee! 
ooee! ooee!” which made my heart ache for him. He is 
looked quite forlorn, and as though he really felt his for¬ 
saken lot. The whole camp was touched at his sorrows, 
and the women were especially moved. 

All this time I stood wonderingly staring at the white 
face of the creature. It was really marvelous, and quite 20 
incomprehensible; and a more strange and weird-looking 
animal I never saw. 

While I stood there, up came two of my hunters and 
began to laugh at me. “Look, Chelly,” said they, calling 
me by the name I was known by among them; “look at25 
your friend. Every time we kill gorilla, you tell us look 
at your black friend. Now, you see, look at your white 
friend.” Then came a roar at what they thought a tre¬ 
mendous joke. 

“Look! he got straight hair, all same as you. See30 
white face of your cousin from the bush! He is nearer 
to you than gorilla is to us! ” And another roar. 


186 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


“ Gorilla no got woolly hair like we. This one straight 
hair, like you.” “Yes,” said I, “but when he gets old his 
face is black; and do you not see his nose, how flat it is, 
like yours?” 

s Whereat there was a louder laugh than before; for so 
long as he can laugh, the negro cares little against whom 
the joke goes. I may as well add here some particulars 
of the little fellow who excited all this surprise and merri¬ 
ment. He lived five months, and became as tame and 
io docile as a cat. I called him Tommy, to which name he 
soon began to answer. 

In three days after his capture he was quite tame. He 
then ate crackers out of my hand; ate boiled rice and 
roasted plantains 0 ; and drank milk of a goat. Two weeks 
is after hi^ capture he was perfectly tamed, and no longer 
required to be tied up. He ran about the camp, and, 
when he went back to Obindij’s town, found his way about 
the village and into the huts just as though he had been 
raised there. 

20 He had a great affection for me, and used constantly 
to follow me about. When I sat down, he was not content 
till he had climbed upon me and hid his head in my breast. 
He was extremely fond of being petted and fondled, and 
would sit by the hour while any one stroked his head or 
2s back. 

He soon began to be a very great thief. When the 
people left their huts he would steal in and make off with 
their plantains or fish. He watched very carefully till 
all had left the house, and it was difficult to catch him 
3 o in the act. I flogged him several times, and, indeed, 
brought him to the conviction that it was wrong to steal; 
but he could never resist the temptation. 


AN AFRICAN PET 


187 


From me he stole constantly. He soon found out that 
my hut was better furnished with ripe bananas and other 
fruit than any other; and also he discovered that the best 
time to steal from me was when I was asleep in the morning. 
At that time he used to crawl in on his tiptoes, move slyly 5 
toward my bed, look at my closed eyes, and, if he saw no 
movement, with an air of great relief go up and pluck 
several plantains. If I stirred in the least he was off like 
a flash, and would presently reenter for another inspec¬ 
tion. If my eyes were open when he came in on such a 10 
predatory 0 trip, he at once came up to me with an honest 
face, and climbed on and caressed me. But I could easily 
detect an occasional wishful glance toward the bunch of 
plantains. 

My hut had no door, but was closed with a mat, and it 15 
was very funny to see Tommy gently raising one corner 
of this mat to see if I was asleep. Sometimes I counter¬ 
feited sleep, and then stirred just as he was in the act of 
taking off his prize. Then he would drop everything, and 
make off in the utmost consternation. 20 

He kept the run of mealtimes, and was present at as 
many meals as possible; that is, he would go from my 
breakfast to half a dozen others, and beg something at 
each. But he never missed my breakfast and dinner, 
knowing by experience that he fared best there. I had a 25 
kind of rude table made, on which my meals were served 
in the open part of my house. This was too high for 
Tommy to see the dishes; so he used to come in before 
I sat down, when all was ready, and climb up on the pole 
which supported the roof. From here he attentively sur- 30 
veyed every dish on the table, and having .determined 
what to have, he would descend and sit down at my side. 


188 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 

If I did not immediately pay attention to him, he began 
to howl, “Hew! hew! hew!” louder and louder, till, for 
peace’s sake, his wants were satisfied. Of course, I could 
not tell what he had chosen for dinner of my different 
5 dishes, and would offer him first one, then another, till 
the right one came. If he received what he did not want, 
he threw it down on the ground with a little shriek of 
anger and a stamp of his foot; and this was repeated till 
he was served to his liking. In short, he behaved very 
io much like a badly spoiled child. 

If I pleased him quickly, he thanked me by a kind of 
gentle murmur, like “hooboo,” and would hold out his 
hand to shake mine. He was very fond of boiled meat, — 
particularly boiled fish, — and was constantly picking 
15 bones he picked up about the town. He wanted always 
to taste of my coffee, and, when Makondai brought it, 
would beg of me, in the most serious manner, for some. 

I made him a little pillow to sleep on, and this he was 
very fond of. When he was once accustomed to it he 
20 never parted from it more, but dragged it after him wher¬ 
ever he went. If by any chance it was lost, the whole 
camp knew it by his howls; and sometimes I had to send 
people to look for it when he had mislaid it on some forest 
excursion, so that he would stop his noise. He slept on it 
25 always, coiled up into a little heap, and only relinquished 
it when I gave him permission to accompany me into 
the woods. 

As he became more and more used to our’ ways, he be¬ 
came more impatient of contradiction and more fond of 
30 being caressed; and whenever he was thwarted he howled 
in his disagreeable way. As the dry season came on, it 
became colder, and Tommy began to wish for company 


AN AFRICAN PET 


189 


when he slept, to keep him warm. The negroes would 
not have him for a companion, for he was for them too 
much like one of themselves. I would not give him room 
near me. So poor Tommy was reduced to misery, as he 
seemed to think. But soon I found that he waited tills 
everybody was fast asleep at night, and then crawled in 
softly next some of his black friends, and slept there till 
earliest dawn. Then he would up and away undiscovered. 
Several times he was caught and beaten, but he always 
tried it again. io 

He had a great deal of intelligence; and if I had had 
leisure I think I might have trained him to some kind of 
good behavior, though I despaired of his thieving disposi¬ 
tion. He lived so long, and was growing so accustomed 
to civilized life, that I began to have great hopes of being I5 
able to carry him to America. But alas! poor Tommy. 
One morning he refused his food, seemed downcast, and 
was very anxious to be petted and held in the arms. I 
got all kinds of forest berries for him, but he refused all. 
He did not seem to suffer, but ate nothing; and the next 20 
day, without a struggle, died. Poor fellow! I was very 
sorry, for he had grown to be quite a pet companion for 
me; and even the negroes, though he had given them 
great trouble, were sorry at his death. 

— Paul B. Du Chaillu. 25 


ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE 


The long-tailed cows of the Lama° herdsmen, they say, 
are so restive and difficult to milk, that, to keep them at 
all quiet, the herdsman has to give them a calf to lick 
meanwhile. But for this device not a single drop of milk 
s could be obtained from them. One day a herdsman, wffio 
lived in the same house with ourselves, came, with a dismal 
face, to announce that the new-born calf of a favorite 
cow was dying. It died in the course of the day. The 
Lama forthwith skinned the poor beast and stuffed it 
io with hay. This proceeding surprised us at first, for the 
Lama had by no means the air of a man likely to give 
himself the luxury of a cabinet of natural history. When 
the operation was completed we found that the hay-calf 
had neither feet nor head; whereupon it occurred to us 
15 that, after all, perhaps it was a pillow that the Lama con¬ 
templated. We were in error; but the error was not 
dissipated till the next morning, when our herdsman went 
to milk his cow. Seeing him issue forth, the pail in one 
hand and the hay-calf under the other arm, the fancy 
20 occurred to us to follow him. His first proceeding was 
to put the hay-calf down before the cow; he then turned 
to milk the cow herself. The mother cow at first opened 
enormous eyes at her beloved infant; by degrees she 
stooped her head towards it, then smelt it, sneezed three 
25 or four times, and at last began to lick it with the most 
delightful tenderness. 


190 


ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE 


191 


This spectacle grated against our sensibilities; it 
seemed to us that he who first invented this parody 0 
upon one of the most touching incidents in nature must 
have been a man without a heart. A somewhat burlesque 
circumstance occurred one day to modify the indignation 5 
with which this treachery inspired us. By dint of caress¬ 
ing and licking her little calf, the tender parent one fine 
morning unripped it; the hay issued from within, and the 
•cow, manifesting not the slightest surprise or agitation, 
proceeded tranquilly to devour the unexpected provender 0 .10 
Poor, simple-minded old cow! But let us laugh at her 
in the right place. That she should fail to distinguish 
between the dead bundle and her living offspring is sur¬ 
prising. But being deceived, why should she think it 
odd to find hay inside? Ignorant of anatomy and phys- 15 
iology, she knows nothing about insides. Had she con¬ 
sidered the matter — and it doesn’t fall in the line of 
bovine rumination 0 — she would doubtless have expected 
to find in her calf not hay but condensed milk. But if not 
milk, why not hay ? She was well acquainted with the 20 
process of putting hay inside, - why therefore should she 
be surprised to find hay inside? But of course she had 
never bothered her dear sleepy old head about any matter 
of the sort. And the moral is that we must not expect 
to find in* animals that kind of intelligence which has no 25 
bearing whatever upon the life that they lead. 

******* 

In Scandinavia, as elsewhere, the bear is sometimes 
domesticated, and if taken young becomes quite tame, 
and is gentle in its disposition. It is not well, however, 
to annoy even a well-disposed bear; for Bruin, like the 3 ° 
rest of us, resents practical jokes of too unpleasant a 


192 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


nature. A Swedish peasant had one who used to stand 
on the back of his sledge when he was on a journey, and 
the beast had so good a balance that it was next to im¬ 
possible to upset him. One day, however, the peasant 
5 amused himself with driving over the very worst ground 
he could find with the intention, if possible, of throwing 
the bear off his balance. In this he succeeded, but not in 
the manner he expected. The bear retained his balance 
of body, but lost his balance of mind, becoming so irri-* 
xo tated that he fetched his master, who was in front of him, 
a tremendous thump on the shoulder, which frightened 
the man so much that he had poor Bruin killed imme¬ 
diately. 

An American writer gives another instance of ursine® 
15 irritability. A friend of his would persist in practising 
the flute near Ills tame black bear. Bruin bore this in 
silence for a while, went so far indeed as himself to try 
and play the flute on his favorite stick; but at last he 
could stand it no longer, and one morning knocked the 
20 flutist’s tall hat over his eyes. If any act of retribution 
is justifiable this was. To practise the flute anywhere 
within earshot is annoying; to do so in a tall hat would be 
simply exasperating. 

It would be easy to fill a small volume with anecdotes 
25 of captive bears. They would show that Bruiif is not so 
stupid as he is sometimes painted, even if they did not 
altogether justify the Swedish saying that the bear unites 
the wit of one man with the strength of ten. Frank Buck- 
land s bear, Tiglath Pileser, was cute enough to know 
30 where to find the sweetstuff, of which he, in common with 
his race, was so inordinately fond; for one day when he 
had broken his chains he was found in a small grocer’s 


ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE 


193 


shop seated on the counter, and helping himself with 
liberal paw to brown sugar and lollipops, to the no small 
discomfort of the good woman who kept the shop. A 
black bear in America had a weakness for chickens. His 
master noticed the thinning of the poultry yard, and 5 
suspicion fell on Bruin owing to the feathers which lay 
round his pole. They could not catch him in the act how¬ 
ever. He was too sharp for that, and if disturbed, when 
he had but half demolished 0 a pullet he would hastily sit 
on the remainder and look as innocent as could be. He 10 
was discovered at last, however, by the cackling of a tough 
old hen which he had failed to silence. 

— Lloyd Morgan (adapted). 


o 


BUCK’S TRIAL OF STRENGTH 


John Thornton, owner of the dog, Buck, had said that Buck 
could draw a sled loaded with one thousand pounds of flour. 
Another miner bet sixteen hundred dollars that he couldn’t, and 
Thornton, though fearing it would be too much for Buck, was 
ashamed to refuse; so he let Buck try to draw a load that 
Matthewson’s team of ten dogs had been hauling. 

The team of ten dogs was unhitched, and Buck, with 
his own harness, was put into the sled. He had felt the 
general excitement, and he felt that in some way he must 
do a great thing for John Thornton. Murmurs of admira- 
5 tion at his splendid appearance went up. He was in 
perfect condition, without an ounce of superfluous 0 flesh, 
and the one hundred and fifty pounds that he weighed were 
so many pounds of grit and virility. His furry coat shone 
with the sheen of silk. Down the neck and across the 
io shoulders, his mane, in repose as it was, half bristled and 
seemed to lift with every movement, as though excess of 
vigor made each particular hair alive and active. The 
great breast and heavy forelegs were no more than in 
proportion with the rest of the body, where the muscles 
15 showed in tight rolls underneath the skin. Men felt 
these muscles and proclaimed them hard as iron, and the 
odds went down two to one. 

“Sir, sir,” stuttered a member of the latest dynasty 0 , 
a king of the Skookum Benches. “I offer you eight 
20 hundred for him, sir, before the test, sir; eight hundred 
just as he stands.” 


104 





BUCK’S TRIAL OF STRENGTH 195 

Thornton shook his head and stepped to Buck’s side. 

“You must stand off from him,” Matthewson pro¬ 
tested. “Free play and plenty of room.” 

The crowd fell silent; only could be heard the voices 
of the gamblers vainly offering two to one. Everybody 5 
acknowledged Buck a magnificent animal, but twenty 
fifty-pound sacks of flour bulked too large in their eyes 
for them to loosen their pouch-strings. 

Thornton knelt down by Buck’s side. He took his 
head into his two hands and rested cheek on cheek. He 10 
did not playfully shake him, as he was wont, or murmur 
soft love curses; but he whispered in his ear. “As you 
love me, Buck. As you love me 0 ,” was what he whispered. 
Buck whined with suppressed eagerness. 

The crowd was watching curiously. The affair was 15 
growing mysterious. It seemed like a conjuration 0 . As 
Thornton got to his feet, Buck seized his mittened hand 
between his jaws, pressing in with his teeth and releasing 
slowly, half-reluctantly. It was the answer, in terms, 
not of speech, but of love. Thornton stepped well back. 20 

“Now, Buck,” he said. 

Buck tightened the traces, then slacked them for a 
matter of several inches. It was the way he had learned. 

“Gee !” Thornton’s voice rang out, sharp in the tense 
silence. 25 

Buck swung to the right, ending the movement in a 
plunge that took up the slack, and, with a sudden jerk, 
arrested his one hundred and fifty pounds. The load 
quivered, and from under the runners arose a crisp crack¬ 
ling. 30 

“Haw! ” Thornton commanded. 

Buck duplicated the maneuver 0 , this time to the left. 


196 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 

The crackling turned into a snapping, the sled pivoting 
and the runners slipping and grating several inches to the 
side. 

The sled was broken out. Men were holding their 
s breaths, intensely unconscious of the fact. 

“Now, Mush!” 

Thornton’s command cracked 'out like a pistol shot. 
Buck threw himself forward, tightening the traces with a 
jarring lunge. His whole body was gathered, tightly 
io together in a tremendous effort, the muscles writhing and 
knotting like live tilings under the silky fur. His great 
chest was low to the ground, his head forward and down, 
while his feet were flying like mad, the claws scarring the 
hard-packed snow in grooves. The sled swayed and trem- 
15 bled, half-started forward. One of his feet slipped, and one 
man groaned aloud. Then the sled lurched ahead in what 
appeared a rapid succession of jerks, though it really 
never came to a dead stop again — half an inch — an 
inch — two inches. The jerks became less as the sled 
20 gained momentum, he caught them up, till it was moving 
steadily along. 

Men gasped and began to breathe again, unaware that 
for a moment they had ceased to breathe. Thornton was 
running behind, encouraging Buck with short, cheery 
25 words. The distance had been measured off, and as he 
neared the pile of firewood which marked the end of the 
hundred yards, a cheer began to grow and -grow, which 
burst into a roar as he passed the firewood and halted at 
command. Every man was tearing himself loose, even 
30 Matthewson, who had lost his wager. Hats and mittens 
were flying in the air. Men were shaking hands, it did 
not matter with whom, and bubbling over in a general 



BUCK'S TRIAL OF STRENGTH 


197 


incoherent babel. But Thornton fell on his knees beside 
Buck. Head was -against head, and he was shaking him 
back and forth. 

“ I’ll give you a thousand for him, sir, a thousand,” 
sputtered the Skookum Bench king, “twelve hundred, sir.” 5 

Thornton rose to his feet. His eyes were wet. The 
tears were streaming frankly down his cheeks. “Sir,” 
he said to the Skookum Bench king, “no, sir. You can 
hold your tongue, sir. It’s the best I can do for you, sir.” 

Buck seized Thornton’s hand in his teeth. Thornton 10 
shook him back and forth. As though moved by a com¬ 
mon feeling, the onlookers drew back to a respectful 
distance; nor did they again interrupt. 


— Jack London. 


ON THE SOLANDER WHALING GROUND 

A bright sunny morning; the gentle north-easterly 
breeze just keeping the sails full as the lumbering whaling- 
barque “ Splendid ” dips jerkily to the old southerly 
swell. Astern, the blue hills around Preservation Inlet 0 
5 lie shimmering in the soft spring sunlight, and on the port 
beam the mighty pillar of the Solander 0 Rock, lying off 
the south-western extremity of the New Zealand, is 
sharply outlined against the steel-blue sky. Far beyond 
that stern sentinel, the converging shores of Foveaux 
io Strait are just discernible in dim outline through a low 
haze. Ahead the jagged and formidable rocks of Stewart 
Island 0 , bathed in a mellow golden glow, give no hint of 
their terrible appearance what time the Storm-fiend of 
the south-west cries havoc and urges on his chariot of war. 
15 The keen-eyed Kanaka 0 ' in the fore crow’s nest° shades 
his eyes with his hand, peering earnestly out on the 
weather bow at something which has attracted his atten¬ 
tion. A tiny plume of vapor rises from the blue hollows 
about ten miles away, but so faint and indefinable that 
20 it may be only a breaking wavelet’s crest caught by the 
cross wind. Again that little bushy jet breaks the mo¬ 
notony of the sea; but this time there is no mistaking it. 
Emerging diagonally from the water, not high and thin, 
but low and spreading, it is an infallible indication to those 
25 piercing eyes of the presence of a sperm-whale. The 

198 





ON THE SOLANDER WHALING GROUND 199 


watcher utters a long, low musical cry, “Blo-o-o-o-w,” 
which penetrates the gloomy recesses of the fo’ksle 0 and 
cuddy 0 , where the slumberers immediately engage in 
fierce conflict with whales of a size never seen by waking 
eyes. The officer and white seamen at the main now take 5 
up the cry, and in a few seconds all hands are swiftly yet 
silently preparing to leave the ship. She is put about, 
making a course which shortly brings her a mile or two to 
windward of the slowly-moving cachalot. Now it is 
evident that no solitary whale is in sight, but a great school, 10 
gambolling in the bright spray. One occasionally, in 
pure exuberance of its tremendous vitality, springs twenty 
feet into the clear air, and falls, a hundred tons of massive 
flesh, with earthquake-like commotion, back into the sea. 

Having got the weather-gage, the boats are lowered; 15 
sail is immediately set, and, like swift huge-winged birds, 
they swoop down upon the prey. Driving right upon 
the back of the nearest monster, two harpoons are plunged 
into his body up to the “hitches 0 .” The sheet 0 is at 
once hauled aft°, and the boat flies up into the wind; while 20 
the terrified cetacean 0 vainly tries, by tremendous writhing 
and plunging, to rid himself of the barbed weapon. The 
mast is unshipped, and preparation made to deliver the 
coup de grace 0 . But finding his efforts futile, the whale 
has sounded, and his reappearance must be awaited. 25 
Two boats’ lines are taken out before the slackening comes, 
and he slowly rises again. Faster and faster the line 
comes in; the blue depths turn a creamy white, and it is 
“Stern all” for dear life. Up he comes, with jaws gaping 
twenty feet wide, gleaming teeth and livid, cavernous 30 
throat glittering in the brilliant light. But the boat’s 
crew are seasoned hands, to whom this dread sight is 


200 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


familiar, and orders are quietly obeyed, the boat backing, 
circling and darting ahead like a sentient thing under their 
united efforts. So the infuriated mammal is baffled and 
dodged, while thrust after thrust of the long lances are 
5 got home, and streamlets of blood trickling over the edges 
of his spouthole give warning that the end is near. A few 
wild circlings at tremendous speed, jaws clashing and 
blood foaming in torrents from the spiracle 0 , one mighty 
leap into the air, and the ocean monarch is dead. He 
iolies just awash, gently undulated by the long, low swell, 
one pectoral fin slowly waving like some great stray leaf 
of Fucus gigantea 0 . A hole is cut through the fluke and 
the line secured to it. The ship, which has been working 
to windward during the conflict, runs down and receives 
is the line; and in a short time the great inert mass is hauled 
alongside and secured by the fluke 0 chain. 

The vessel, bound to that immense body, can only 
crawl tortoise-like before the wind—lucky, indeed, to have 
a harbor ahead where the whale may be cut in, even 
20 though it be forty miles away. Without that refuge 
available, she could not hope to keep the sea and hold 
her prize through the wild weather, now so near. The 
breeze is freshening fast, and all sail is made for Port 
William. So slow is the progress, that it is past midnight 
25 before that snug shelter is reached, although for the last 
four hours the old ship is terribly tried and strained by the 
press of sail carried to such a gale. 


— Frank Bullen. 


AN EPISODE OF THE FRENCH 
REVOLUTION 


With a wild rattle and clatter, and an inhuman aban¬ 
donment of consideration not easy to be understood in 
these days, the carriage dashed through streets and swept 
round corners, with women screaming before it, and men 
clutching each other and clutching children out of its 5 
way. At last, swooping at a street corner by a fountain, 
one of its wheels came to a sickening little jolt, and there 
was a loud cry from a number of voices, and the horses 
reared and plunged. 

But for the latter inconvenience, the carriage probably io 
would not have stopped; carriages were often known to 
drive on, and leave their wounded behind, and why not? 
But the frightened valet had got down in a hurry, and 
there were twenty hands at the horses' bridles. 

“What has gone wrong?" said Monsieur, calmly is 
looking out. 

A tall man in a nightcap had caught up a bundle from 
among the feet of horses, and had laid it on the basement 
of the fountain, and was down in the mud and wet, howl¬ 
ing over it like a wild animal. 20 

“Pardon, Monsieur the Marquis!" said a ragged and 
submissive man, “it is a child." 

“Why does he make that abominable noise? Is it his 
child?" 


201 


202 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


“Excuse me, Monsieur the Marquis — it is a pity — 
yes.” 

The fountain was a little removed; for the street opened, 
where it was, into a space some ten or twelve yards square, 
s As the tall man suddenly got up from the ground, and 
came running at the carriage, Monsieur the Marquis 
clapped his hand for an instant on his sword hilt. 

“Killed!” shrieked the man, in wild desperation, 
extending both arms at their length above his head, and 
io staring at him. “Dead!” 

The people closed round, and looked at Monsieur the 
Marquis. There was nothing revealed by the many eye^ 
that looked at him but watchfulness and eagerness; there 
was no visible menacing or anger. Neither did the people 
is say anything; after the first cry, they had been silent, and 
they remained so. The voice of the submissive man who 
had spoken, was flat and tame in its extreme submission. 
Monsieur the Marquis ran his eyes over them all, as if 
they had been mere rats come out of their holes. 

20 He took out his purse. 

“It is extraordinary to me,” said he, “that you people 
cannot take care of yourselves and your children. One 
or the other of you is fo? ever in the way. How do I know 
what injury you have done my horses. See! Give him 
25 that.” 

He threw out a gold coin for the valet to pick up, and 
all the heads craned forward that all the eyes might look 
down at it as it fell. The tall man called out again with 
a most unearthly cry. “ Dead! ” 

30 He was arrested by the quick arrival of another man, for 
whom the rest made way. On seeing him, the miserable 
creature fell upon his shoulder, sobbing and crying, and 


AN EPISODE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 203 


pointing to the fountain, where some women were stooping 
over the motionless bundle, and moving gently about it. 
They were as silent, however, as the men. 

“I know all, I know all,” said the last comer. “Be a 
brave man, my Gaspard! It is better for the poor little 5 
plaything to die so, than to live. It has died in a moment 
without pain. Could it have lived an hour as happily?” 

“You are a philosopher, you there,” said the Marquis, 
smiling. “How do they call you?” 

“They call me Defarge.” 10 

“Of what trade?” 

“Monsieur the Marquis, vendor 0 of wine.” 

“Pick up that, philosopher and vendor of wine,” said 
the Marquis, throwing him another gold coin, “ and spend 
it as you will. The horses there; are they right?” 15 

Without deigning to look at the assemblage a second 
time, Monsieur the Marquis leaned back in his*^eat, and 
was just being driven away with the air of a gentleman who 
had accidentally broke some common thing, and had paid 
for it, and could afford to pay for it; when his ease was 20 
suddenly disturbed by a coin flying into his carriage, and 
ringing on its floor. 

“Hold!” said Monsieur the Marquis. “Hold the 
horses! Who threw that?” , 

He looked to the spot where Defarge the vendor of 25 
wine had stood a moment before; but the wretched father 
was grovelling on his face on the pavement in that spot, 
and the figure that stood beside him was the figure of a 
dark stout woman, knitting. 

“You dogs!” said the Marquis, but smoothly, and30 
■with an unchanged front, except as to the spots on his nose: 

“I would ride over any of you very willingly, and exter- 


204 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


minate you from the earth. If I knew which rascal threw 
at the carriage, and if that brigand were sufficiently near 
it, he should be crushed under the wheels.” 

So cowed was their condition, and so long and hard 
5 their experience of what such a man could do to them, 
within the law and beyond it, that not a voice or a hand, 
or even an eye was raised. Among the men, not one. 
But the woman who stood knitting looked up steadily, 
and looked the Marquis in the face. It was not for his 
io dignity to notice it; his contemptuous eyes passed over 
her, and over all the other rats; and he leaned back in 
his seat again, and gave the word “Go on!” 

— Charles Dickens. 


THE COMMANDER OF THE FAITHFUL 


These events are succeeded by a few moments of silent 
waiting. Then suddenly the long lines of soldiers vibrate 
under a thrill of religious awe; the band, with its great 
basses and its drums, strikes up a deafening, mournful air. 
The fifty little black slaves run, run as if their lives were at 5 
stake, deploying 0 from their base like the sticks of a fan, 
resembling bees swarming, or a flock of birds. And yonder, 
in the shadowy light of the ogive 0 , upon which all eyes 
are turned, there appears a tall, brown-faced mannikin, 
all veiled in white muslin, mounted on a splendid white io 
horse led in hand by four slaves; over his head is held 
an umbrella of antique form, such an one as must have 
protected the Queen of Sheba 0 , and two gigantic negroes, 
one in pink, the other in blue, wave fly-flaps around the 
person of the sovereign. *5 

While the strange mannikin, or mummy, almost shape¬ 
less, but majestic notwithstanding in his robes of snowy 
white, is advancing towards us, the music, as if exasperated 
to madness, wails louder and louder and in a shriller key; 
it strikes up a slow and distressful religious air, the time of 20 
which is accentuated by a frightful beating of the bass- 
drums. The mannikin’s horse rears wildly, restrained 
with difficulty by the four black slaves, and this music, 
so mournful and so strange to us, affects our nerves with an 
indescribable agonizing sensation. 25 

205 



206 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


Here, at last, drawn up close beside us, stands this last 
authentic descendant of Mahomet, crossed with Nubian 
blood. His attire, of the finest mousseline-de-laine, is of 
immaculate whiteness. His charger, too, is entirely 
s white, his great stirrups are of gold, and his saddle and 
equipments are of a very pale green silk, lightly embroidered 
in a still paler shade of green. The slaves who hold his 
horse, the one who carries the great red umbrella, and the 
two — the pink and blue ones — who shake napkins in 
io the monarch’s face to drive away imaginary flies, are all 
herculean negroes whose countenances are wrinkled into 
fierce smiles; they are all old men, and their gray or white 
beards contrast with the blackness of their features. 
This ceremonial of a bygone age harmonizes with the 
15 wailing music, and could not suit better the huge walls 
around us, which rear their crumbling summits high in 
the air. 

This man, who thus presents himself before us with the 
surroundings which I have described, is the last faithful 
20 exponent of a religion, a civilization that is about to die. 
He is the personification, in fact, of ancient Islam 0 . What 
result can we expect to obtain from an embassy to such 
a man, who, together with his people, spends his life 
torpid and motionless among ancient dreams of humanity 
25 that have almost disappeared from the surface of the 
earth? There is not a single point on which we can 
understand each other; the distance between us is nearly 
that which would separate us from a caliph 0 of Cordova 0 
or Bagdad 0 who should come to life again after a slumber 
30 of a thousand years. What do we wish to obtain from him, 
and why have we brought him forth from his impene¬ 
trable palace? 


THE COMMANDER OF THE FAITHFUL 207 

His brown, parchment-like face in its setting of white 
muslin, has regular and noble features; dull, expression¬ 
less eyes, the whites of which appear beneath the balls 
that are half concealed by the drooping lashes; his ex¬ 
pression is that of exceeding melancholy, a supreme las-5 
situde, a supreme ennui. He has an appearance of be¬ 
nignity, and is really kindhearted, according to what they 
say who know him. (If the people of Fez° are to be be¬ 
lieved, he is even too much so — he does not chop off as 
many heads as he ought to for the holy cause of Islam.) 10 
But this kindheartedness, no doubt, is relative in degree, 
as was often the case with ourselves in the middle ages; 
a mildness which is not over-sensitive in the face of shed¬ 
ding blood when there is a necessity for it, nor in face of an 
array of human heads set up in a row over the fine gate- is 
way at the entrance to the palace. Assuredly he is not 
cruel; he could not be so with that gentle, sad expression. 
He punishes with severity sometimes, as his divine au¬ 
thority gives him the right to do, but it is said that he 
finds a still keener pleasure in pardoning. He is a priest 20 
and a warrior, and carries each of these characters per¬ 
haps to excess; feeling as deeply as a prophet the responsi¬ 
bility of his heavenly mission, chaste in the midst of his 
seraglio 0 , strict in his attention to onerous 0 religious 
observances, and hereditarily very much of a fanatic — he 25 
aims to form himself upon Mahomet 0 as perfectly as may 
be: all this, moreover, is legible in his eyes, upon his fine 
countenance, in the upright majesty of his bearing. He 
is a man whom we can neither understand nor judge in 
the times we live in, but he is surely a great man, a man 30 
of mark. 


— Pierre Loti (adapted). 



WALT WHITMAN 


I first heard of him among the sufferers on the Penin¬ 
sula 0 after a battle there. Subsequently I saw him, time 
and again, in the Washington hospitals, or wending his 
way there, with basket or haversack 0 on his arm, and the 
5 strength of beneficence suffusing his face. His devotion 
surpassed the devotion of woman. It would take a volume 
to tell of his kindness, tenderness, and thoughtfulness. 

“Never shall I forget one night when I accompanied 
him on his rounds through a hospital filled with those 
i o wounded young Americans whose heroism he has sung 
in deathless numbers. There were three rows of cots, 
and each cot bore its man. When he appeared, in passing 
along, there was a smile of affection and welcome on every 
face, however wan, and his presence seemed to light up 
15 the place as it might be lighted by the presence of the 
God of Love. From cot to cot they called him, often in 
tremulous tones or in whispers; they embraced him; 
they touched his hand; they gazed at him. To one he 
gave a few words of cheer; for another he wrote a letter 
20home; to others he gave an orange, a few comfits 0 , a 
cigar, a pipe and tobacco, a sheet of paper or a postage- 
stamp, all of which and many other things were in his 
capacious haversack. From another he would receive 
a dying message for mother, wife, or sweetheart; for 
25 another he would promise to go an errand 0 ; to another, 

208 



WALT WHITMAN 


209 


some special friend very low, he would give a manly fare¬ 
well kiss. He did things for them no nurse or doctor 
could do, and he seemed to leave a benediction 0 at every 
cot as he passed along. The lights had gleamed for hours 
in the hospital that night before he left it, and, as he took 5 
his way towards the door, you co x uld hear the voices of 
many a stricken hero calling, “Walt, Walt, Walt! come 
again! come'again!” 

He carried among them no sentimentalism nor moraliz¬ 
ing; spoke not to any man of his “sins,” but gave some- 10 
thing good to eat, a buoying 0 word, or trifling gift and a 
look. He appeared with ruddy face, clean dress, with a 
flower or a green sprig in the lapel of his coat. Crossing 
the fields in summer, he would gather a great bunch of 
dandelion blossoms, and red and white clover, to bring 15 
and scatter on the cots, as reminders of out-door air and 
sunshine. 

When practicable, he came to the long and crowded 
wards of the maimed, the feeble, and the dying, only after 
preparations as for a festival — strengthened by a good 20 
meal, rest, the bath and fresh under-clothes. He entered 
with a huge haversack slung over his shoulder full of ap¬ 
propriate articles, with parcels under his arms, and pro¬ 
tuberant 0 pockets. He would sometimes come in summer 
with a good-sized basket filled with oranges, and would 25 
go round for hours paring and dividing them among the 
feverish and thirsty. 

Walt Whitman was of the people, the common people, 
and always gave out their quality and atmosphere. His 
commonness, his nearness, as of the things you have 30 
always known, — the day, the sky, the soil, your own 
parents, — were in no way veiled, or kept in abeyance, 




210 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 

by his culture or poetic gifts. He was redolent of the 
human and the familiar. Though capable, on occasions, 
of great pride and hauteur, yet his habitual mood and 
presence was that of simple, average, healthful humanity, 
5 — the virtue and flavor of sailors, soldiers, laborers, 
travelers, or people who live with real things in the open 
air. His commonness rose into the uncommon, the ex¬ 
traordinary, but without any hint of the exclusive or 
specially favored. He was indeed “no sentimentalist, no 
io stander above men and women or apart from them.” 

The spirit that animates every page of his book, and 
that it always effuses 0 , is the spirit of common, universal 
humanity, — humanity apart from creed, schools, con¬ 
ventions, from all special privileges and refinements, as 
i5 it is in and of itself in its relations to the whole system of 
things, in contradistinction to the literature of culture 
which effuses the spirit of the select and exclusive. 

His life was the same. Walt Whitman never stood 
apart from or above any human being. The common 
20 people — workingmen, the poor, the illiterate, the out¬ 
cast — saw themselves in him, and he saw himself in them: 
the attraction was mutual. He was always content with 
common, unadorned humanity. 

— John Burroughs (adapted). 


HEROISM IN HOUSEKEEPING 


So many talents are wasted, so many enthusiasms 
turned to smoke, so many lives spoiled for want of a little 
patience and endurance, for want of understanding and 
laying to heart the meaning of The Present —for want of 
recognizing that it is not the greatness or littleness of 5 
the duty nearest hand, but the spirit in which one does 
it, which makes one’s doing noble or mean! I can’t 
think how people who have any natural ambition, and 
any sense of power in them, escape going mad in a world 
like this, without the recognition of that. I know I was io 
very near mad when I found it out for myself (as one has 
to find out for oneself everything that is to be of any real 
practical use to one). 

Shall I tell you how it came into my head? Perhaps 
it may be of comfort to you in similar moments of fatigue 15 
and disgust. I had gone with my husband to live on a 
little estate of peat-bog, that had descended to me all the 
way down from John Welsh, the Covenanter®, who mar¬ 
ried a daughter of John Knox®. That didn’t, I’m ashamed 
to say, make me feel Craigenputtock® a whit less of a peat- 20 
bog and a most dreary, untoward place to live at. In 
fact, it was sixteen miles distant on every side from all the 
conveniences of life, shops, and even post-office. Further, 
we were very poor, and further and worst, being an only 
child, and brought up to great prospects, I was sublimely 25 
211 




212 SHOUT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


ignorant of every branch of useful knowledge, though a 
capital Latin scholar and very fair mathematician. 

It behooved me in these astonishing circumstances to 
learn to sew. Husbands, I was shocked to find, wore 
5 their stockings into holes, and were always losing buttons, 
and I was expected to “look to all that” ; also it behooved 
me to learn to cook! no capable servant choosing to live 
at such an out-of-the-way place, and my husband having 
bad digestion, which complicated my difficulties dread- 
io fully. The bread, above all, brought from Dumfries 0 , 
“soured on his stomach” and it was plainly my duty as 
a Christian wife to bake at home. 

So I sent for Cobbett’s “Cottage Economy,” and fell 
to work at a loaf of bread. But, knowing nothing about 
15 the process of fermentation or the heat of ovens, it came 
to pass that my loaf got put into the oven at the time that 
myself ought to have been put into bed; and I remained 
the only person not asleep in a house in the middle of a 
desert. 

20 One o’clock struck! and then two!! and then three!!! 
And still I was sitting there in the midst of an immense 
solitude, my whole body aching with weariness, my heart 
aching with a sense of forlornness and degradation. That 
I, who had been so petted at home, whose comfort had 
25 been studied by everybody in the house, who had never 
been required to do anything but cultivate my mind, 
should have to pass all those hours of the night in watching 
a loaf of bread — which mightn’t turn out bread after all! 

Such thoughts maddened me, till I laid down my head 
30 on the table and sobbed aloud. It was then that somehow 
the idea of Benvenuto Cellini 0 sitting up all night watch¬ 
ing his Perseus in the furnace came into my head, and 


HEROISM IN HOUSEKEEPING 


213 


suddenly I asked myself: '‘After all, in the sight of the 
upper Powers, what is the mighty difference between a 
statue of Perseus and a loaf of bread, so that each be the 
thing that one’s hand has found to do? The man’s 
determined will, his energy, his patience, his resources 
were the really admirable things of which his statue of 
Perseus was the mere chance expression. If he had been 
a woman, living at Craigenputtock with a dyspeptic 
husband, sixteen miles from a baker, and he a bad one, 
all these qualities would have come out more fitly in aio 
good loaf of bread!” 

I cannot express what consolation this germ of an idea 
spread over my uncongenial life during the years we lived 
at that savage place, where my two immediate predecessors 
had gone mad, and a third had taken to drink. 15 

— Jane Welsh Carlyle. 




A YOUTHFUL ACTOR 


My dramatic career was brought to a close by an un¬ 
fortunate circumstance. We were playing the drama of 
“William Tell, the Hero of Switzerland.” Of course I 
was William Tell, in spite of Fred Langdon, who wanted 
5 to act that character himself. I wouldn’t let him, so 
he withdrew from the company, taking the only bow and 
arrow we had. I made a cross-bow out of a piece of whale¬ 
bone, and did very well without him. We had reached 
that exciting scene where Gessler, the Austrian tyrant, 
io commands Tell to shoot the apple from his son’s head. 
Pepper Whitcomb, who played all the juvenile and women 
parts, was my son. To guard against mischance, a piece 
of pasteboard was fastened by a handkerchief over the 
upper portion of Whitcomb’s face, while the arrow to be 
is used was sewed up in a strip of flannel. I was a capital 
marksman, and the big apple, only two yards distant, 
turned its russet cheek fairly towards me. 

I can see poor little Pepper now, as he stood without 
flinching, waiting for me to perform my great feat. I 
20 raised the cross-bow amid the breathless silence of the 
crowded audience, — consisting of seven boys and three 
girls, exclusive of Kitty Collins, who insisted on paying 
her way in with a clothes-pin. I raised the cross-bow, 
I repeat. Twang! went the whipcord; but, alas! in- 
25 stead of hitting the apple, the arrow flew right into Pepper 

214 


A YOUTHFUL ACTOR 


215 


Whitcomb’s mouth, which happened to be open at the 
time, and destroyed my aim. 

I shall never be able to banish that awful moment from 
my memory. Pepper’s roar, expressive of astonishment, 
indignation, and pain, is still ringing in my ears. I looked 5 
upon him as a corpse, and, glancing not far into the dreary 
future, pictured myself led forth to execution in the 
presence of the very same spectators then assembled. 

Luckily poor Pepper was not seriously hurt. 

— T. B. Aldrich. 





WAR 


What, speaking in quite unofficial language, is the net 
purpose and upshot of war? To my own knowledge, for 
example, there dwell and toil in the British village of 
Dumdrudge 0 usually some five hundred souls. From 
5 these there are successfully selected, during the French 
war, say thirty able-bodied men. Dumdrudge, at her 
own expense, has suckled and nursed them. She has, not 
without difficulty and sorrow, fed them up to manhood, 
and even trained them to crafts, so that one can weave, 
io another build, another hammer, and the weakest can 
stand under thirty stone avoirdupois. Nevertheless, 
amid much weeping and swearing, they are selected; all 
dressed in red; and shipped away at the public charges 
some two thousand miles, or say only to the south of 
15 Spain; and fed there until wanted. And now to that 
same spot in the south of Spain, are thirty similar French 
artisans, from a French Dumdrudge, in like manner wend¬ 
ing. At length, after infinite effort, the two parties come 
into actual juxtaposition; and thirty stands fronting 
20 thirty, each with a gun in his hand. Straightway the 
word “Fire!” is given, and they blow the souls out of one 
another. And in place of sixty brisk useful craftsmen, 
the world has sixty dead carcasses, which it must bury 
and anew shed tears for. Had these men any quarrel? 
25 Busy as the Devil is, not the smallest! They lived far 

216 


WAR 


217 


enough apart; were the entirest strangers; nay, in so 
wide a universe, there was even unconsciously, by com¬ 
merce, some mutual helpfulness between them. How 
then? Simpleton! their Governors had fallen out; and 
instead of shooting one another, had the cunning to make 5 
these poor blockheads shoot. 

— Carlyle. 



COON-HUNTING 


’Coon-hunting 0 is one of the truly American sports of 
the chase, though its devotees have found difficulty in 
persuading folks to take their sport seriously. It is, in 
truth, a comical aspect of hunting, and is scarcely less 
5 wanting in dignity than a ’possum 0 chase, which con¬ 
fessedly has none at all. If ’coon-hunting be regarded 
as a step higher than that, it loses the advantage at the 
end, for a fat ’possum is certainly better eating than a 
’coon, however rotund. The chase, nevertheless, calls 
iofor endurance, since an old ’coon may run four or five 
miles after he has been started, zigzagging hither and yon, 
circling round and round trees, leaving a track calculated 
to make a dog dizzy, swimming streams, and running 
along the tops of logs and snake-fences 0 , hiding his trail 
15 with the craftiness of a fox. 

The hunt is always organized late at night. Nobody 
ever heard of a real ’coon-hunt by daylight. The animals 
are moving about then, leaving trails that, starting at 
the edge of the woods, lead into the fastnesses where they 
20take refuge. Such trails would grow “cold” before 
noonday. 

There are dogs called ’coon-dogs, but of no particular 
breed or pedigree. A local pack will consist of Rag, Tag, 
and Bobtail, with all of Bobtail’s friends and connections. 
25 One of them is known to be best and takes the lead. They 

218 


COON-HUNTING 


219 


call him the trailer. The rest rush yelping after, and as 
fast as possible follow the hunters, with torches or lan¬ 
terns or by moonlight, carrying axes and hatchets, guns, 
and antidotes for snake-bite in flat, black bottles. Trailer’s 
motley crew catch a sniff of the trail and disappear in the 5 
darkness of the brushy woods, baying, barking, yelping, 
squealing, each after its kind. After them go the whoop¬ 
ing hunters, following by ear as the dogs do by nose, for 
none can use the sense of sight. 

Finally a chorus of eager barking in a different tone from IO 
what has thus far been heard announces to experienced 
ears that the dogs have some game at bay. The hunters 
dispute as to what it is as they crash and stagger on through 
the gloom, each swearing he knows by his cur’s voice 
what sort of an animal he has in view. Arrived at the 15 
scene of the clamor, the dogs are found in frantic excite¬ 
ment around the foot of a tree, in whose shadowy foliage 
something is supposed to be hidden. Will it be a ’coon, 
or will it turn out a ’possum, a wild-cat, or mayhap an 
owl ? 20 

First of all a fire is lighted, and its upreaching blaze 
sends fitful rays of yellow light far among the overhanging 
branches. Now there may be discerned a^ hollow near 
the summit of the trunk, and as dead branches are heaped 
upon the fire, sharp eyes may detect a triangular head 25 
peering out of what was once, perhaps, the front door of 
a woodpecker’s home, and the glints of green are reported 
to be the glare of a raccoon’s eyes. 

The nimblest man in the party is sent up the tree, and 
given a stick wherewith to frighten or poke or pry the 30 
cornered animal out of his castle. Compelled to leave 
the hole, it creeps out upon a limb, and squatting down, 



220 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 

snarls at the stranger, who tries to shake loose its hold. 
But this is a vain attempt. A raccoon can cling like a 
burr. Try to drag your pet ’coon off the top of a fence, 
and if he chooses to resist, you may pull him limb from 
5 limb before he will let go. So they take the severer 
method of chopping the branches, until the poor little 
beast has none left to clutch in falling, and comes down a 
heap of fur and teeth and claws into the midst of the dogs. 
Instantly there follows a scrimmage, where often an honest 
xo bark is changed in the middle to a yelp of pain, until many 
a time the melee changes to a ring of hurt and angry but 
vanquished curs around a ’coon lying on his back, with 
bloody teeth and claws ready to try it again; and then he 
is shot by the hunters, merciless to the last. More often 
is the whole tree must be cut down, and the brave ’coon 
falls with it, and is dashed out among his enemies to fight 
for his life at the end of his fall. 

— Ernest Ingersoll (adapted). 


SIGHT IN SAVAGES 


In Patagonia 0 I added something to my small stock of 
private facts concerning eyes — their appearance, color, 
and expression — and vision, subjects which have had a 
mild attraction for me as long as I can remember. When, 
as a boy, I mixed with the gauchos 0 of the pampas 0 , there s 
was one among them who greatly awed me by his appear¬ 
ance and character. He was distinguished among his fel¬ 
lows by his tallness, the thickness of his eyebrows and the 
great length* of his crow-black beard, the form and length 
of his “facon,” or knife, which was nothing but a sword io 
worn knife-wise, and the ballads he composed, in which 
were recounted, in a harsh tuneless voice to the strum- 
strum of a guitar, the hand-to-hand combats he had had 
with others of his class — fighters and desperadoes — and 
in which he had always been the victor, for his adversaries 15 
had all been slain to a man. But his eyes, his most wonder¬ 
ful feature, impressed me more than anything else; for 
one was black and the other dark blue. All other strange 
and extranatural things in nature, of which I had personal 
knowledge, as, for instance, mushrooms growing in rings, 20 
and the shrinking of the sensitive plant when touched, 
and Will-o’-the-wisps, and crowing hens, and the mur¬ 
derous attack of social birds and beasts on one of their 
fellows, seemed less strange and wonderful than the fact 
that this man’s eyes did not correspond, but were the 25 
221 



222 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


eyes of two men, as if there had been two natures and 
souls in one body. My astonishment was, perhaps, not 
unaccountable, when we reflect that the eye is to us the 
window of the mind or soul, that it expresses the soul, 

5 and is, as it were, the soul itself materialized. 

Some person lately published in England a book en¬ 
titled “Soul-Shapes/’ treating not only of the shapes of 
souls but also of their color. The letter-press of this work 
interests me less than the colored plates adorning it. 
io Passing over the mixed and vari-colored souls, which 
resemble, in the illustrations, colored maps in an atlas, 
we come to the blue soul, for which the author has a very 
special regard. Its blue is like that of the commonest 
type of blue eye. This curious fancy of a blue soul 
is probably originated in the close association of eye and 
soul in the mind. It is worthy of note that while the 
mixed and other colored souls seem very much out of 
shape, like an old felt hat or a stranded jelly fish, the pure 
colored blue soul is round, like an iris, and only wanted 
20 a pupil to be made an eye. 

Here again I recall an incident of my boyhood, and am 
not sure that it was not this that first gave me an interest 
in the subject. 

One summer day, at home, I was attentively listening, 
25 out of doors, to a conversation between two men, both 
past middle life and about the same age, one an educated 
Englishman, wearing spectacles, the other a native, who 
was very impressive in his manner, and was holding forth 
in a loud authoritative voice on a variety of subjects. All 
30 at once he fixed his eyes on the spectacles worn by the 
other, and, bursting into a laugh, cried out, “Why do you 
always wear those eye-hiding glasses straddled across 


SIGHT IN SAVAGES 


223 


your nose? Are they supposed to make a man look 
handsomer or wiser than his fellows, or do you, a sensible 
person, really believe that you can see better than another 
man because of them ? If so, then all I can say is that it 
is a fable, a delusion; no man can believe such a thing.” 5 
He was only expressing the feeling that all persons of 
his class, whose lives are passed in the semi-barbarous 
conditions of the gauchos on the pampas, experience at 
the sight of such artificial helps to vision as spectacles. 
They look through a pane of glass, and it makes the view 10 
no clearer, but rather dimmer — how can the two diminu¬ 
tive circular panes carried before the eyes produce any 
other effect? Besides, their sight as a rule is good when 
they are young, and as they progress in life they are not 
conscious of decadence in it; from infancy to old age the 15 
world looks, they imagine, the same; the grass as green, 
the sky as blue as ever, and the scarlet verbenas in the 
grass just as scarlet. The man lives in his sight; it is 
his life; he speaks of the loss of it as a calamity great as 
the loss of reason. To see spectacles amuses and irritates 20 
him at the same time; he has the monkey’s impulse to 
snatch the idle things from his fellow’s nose; for not only 
is it useless to the wearer, and a sham, but it is annoying 
to others, who do not like to look at a man and not properly 
see his eyes and the thought that is in them. 25 

To the mocking speech he had made, the other good 
humoredly replied that he had worn glasses for twenty 
years, that not only did they enable him to see much better 
than he could without them, but they had preserved his 
sight from further decadence. Not satisfied with de-30 
fending himself against the charge of being a fantastical 
person for wearing glasses, he in his turn attacked the 


224 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


mocker. “How do you know,” he said, “that your 
own eyesight has not degenerated with time? You can 
only ascertain that by trying on a number of glasses 
suited to a variety of sights, all in some degree defective. 

5 A score of men with defective sight may be together, and 
in no two will the sight be the same. You must try on 
spectacles, as you try on boots, until you find a pair to 
fit you. You may try mine, if you like; our years are 
the same, and it is just possible that our eyes may be in 
io the same condition.” 

The gaucho laughed a loud and scornful laugh, and 
exclaimed that the idea was too ridiculous. “What, see 
better with this thing!” and he took them gingerly in 
his hand, and held them up to examine them, and finally 
15 put them on his nose — something in the spirit of the 
person who takes a newspaper twisted into the shape of 
an extinguisher, and puts it on his head. He looked at 
the other, then at me, then stared all round him with an 
expression of utter astonishment, and in the end burst 
20 out in loud exclamations of delight. For, strange to say, 
the glasses exactly suited his vision, which, unknown to 
him, had probably been decaying for years. “Angels 
of heaven, what is this I see! ” he shouted. “What makes 
the trees look so green — they were never so green before! 
25 And so distinct — I can count their leaves! And the cart 
over there — why, it is red as blood!” And to satisfy 
himself that it had not just been freshly painted, he ran 
over to it and placed his hand on the wood. It proved 
hard to convince him that objects had once looked as dis- 
30 tinct, and leaves as green, and the sky as blue, and red 
paint as red, to his natural sight, as they now did through 
those magical glasses. The distinctness and brightness 


SIGHT IN SAVAGES 


225 


seemed artificial and uncanny. But in the end he was 
convinced, and then he wanted to keep the spectacles, 
and pulled out his money to pay for them there and then, 
and was very much put out when their owner insisted on 
having them back. However, shortly afterwards a pairs 
was got for him; and with these on his nose he galloped 
about the country, exhibiting them to all his neighbors, 
and boasting of the miraculous power they imparted to 
his eyes of seeing the world as no one else could see it. 

— W. H. Hudson. 


q 


THE VILLAGE SCHOOLMASTER 

In this by-place of nature there abode, in a remote 
period of American history, that is to say, some thirty 
years since, a worthy wight 0 of the name of Ichabod Crane; 
who sojourned, or as he expressed it, “tarried,” in Sleepy 
s Hollow, for the purpose of instructing the children of the 
vicinity. He was a native of Connecticut, a state which 
supplies the Union with pioneers for the mind as well as 
for the forest, and sends forth yearly its legions of frontier 
woodmen and country schoolmasters. The cognomen 
io of Crane was not inapplicable to his person. He was tall, 
but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms 
and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet 
that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame 
most loosely hung together. His head was small, and 
15 flat at the top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, 
and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weathercock 
perched upon his spindle neck to tell which way the wind 
blew. To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a 
windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about 
20 him, one might have mistaken him for the genius of 
famine descending upon the earth, or some < scarecrow 
eloped from a cornfield. 

In addition to his other vocations, he was the singing- 
master of the neighborhood, and picked up many bright 
25 shillings by instructing the young folks in psalmody. 

226 


THE VILLAGE SCHOOLMASTER 


227 


It was a matter of no little vanity to Mm on Sundays, to 
take his station in front of the church gallery, with a band 
of chosen singers, where, in his own mind, he completely 
carried away the palm from the parson. Certain it is 
his voice resounded far above all the rest of the congre-s 
gation, and there are peculiar quavers still to be heard 
in that church, and which may even be heard half a mile 
off, quite to the opposite side of the mill-pond, on a still 
Sunday morning, which are said to be legitimately de¬ 
scended from the nose of Ichabod Crane. Thus, byio 
divers little makeshifts, in that ingenious way which is 
commonly denominated “by hook and by crook,” the 
worthy pedagogue got on tolerably enough, and was 
thought, by all who understood nothing of this labor of 
head-work, to have a wonderful easy life of it. 15 

The schoolmaster is generally a man of some impor¬ 
tance in the female circle of a rural neighborhood; being 
considered a kind of idle gentleman-like personage, of 
vastly superior taste and accomplishments to the rough 
country swains, and, indeed, inferior in learning only to 20 
the parson. His appearance, therefore, is apt to occasion 
some little stir at the tea-table of a farm-house, and the 
addition of a supernumerary 0 dish of cakes or sweetmeats, 
or, peradventure, the parade of a silver teapot. Our 
man of letters, therefore, was peculiarly happy in the 25 
smiles of all the country damsels. How he would figure 
among them in the churchyard, between services on 
Sundays! gathering grapes for them from the wild vines 
that overrun the surrounding trees, reciting for their 
amusement all the epitaphs on the tombstones; or saun- 30 
tering with a whole bevy of them, along the banks of the 
adjacent millpond, while the more bashful country bump- 


228 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


kins hung sheepishly back, envying his superior elegance 
and address. 

From his half-itinerant life, he was a kind of travelling 
gazette, carrying the whole budget of local gossip from 
5 house to house, so that his appearance was always greeted 
with satisfaction. He was, moreover, esteemed by the 
women as a man of great erudition, 0 for he had read 
several books quite through, and was a perfect master of 
Cotton Mather's “ History of New England Witchcraft," 
ioin which, by the way, he most firmly and potently be¬ 
lieved. 

He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewdness 
and simple credulity. His appetite for the marvellous, 
and his powers of digesting it, were equally extraordinary; 
15 and both had been increased by his residence in this spell¬ 
bound region. No tale was too gross or monstrous for 
his capacious swallow. It was often his delight, after his 
school was dismissed in the afternoon, to stretch himself 
on the rich bed of clover bordering the little brook that 
20 whimpered by his school-house, and there con over old 
Mather's 0 direful tales, until the gathering dusk of the 
evening made the printed page a mere mist before his eyes. 
Then as he wended his way by swamp and stream and 
awful woodland, to the farm-house where he happened to 
25 be quartered, every sound of nature, at that witching 
hour, fluttered his excited imagination, — the moan of the 
whippoorwill from the hillside, the boding cry of the tree- 
toad, that harbinger of storm, the dreary hooting of the 
screech-owl, or the sudden rustling in the thicket of birds 
3 o frightened from their roost. The fire-flies, too, which 
sparkled most vividly in the darkest places, now and then 
startled him, as one of uncommon brightness would stream 


THE VILLAGE SCHOOLMASTER 


229 


across his path; and if by chance a huge blackhead of a 
beetle came winging his blundering flight against him, 
the poor varlet 0 was ready to give up the ghost, with the 
idea that he was struck with a witch's token. His only 
resource on such occasions, either to drown thought or 5 
drive away evil spirits, was to sing psalm-tunes; and the 
good people of Sleepy-Hollow, as they sat by their doors 
of an evening, were often filled with awe at hearing his 
nasal melody, “in linked sweetness long drawn out," 
floating from the distant hill or along the dusky road. IO 
Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was to pass 
long winter evenings with the old Dutch wives, as they 
sat spinning by the fire, with a row of apples roasting 
and spluttering along the hearth, and listen to their mar¬ 
vellous tales of ghosts and goblins, and haunted brooks, 15 
and haunted bridges, and haunted houses, and particularly 
of the headless horseman, or Galloping Hessian of the 
Hollow, as they sometimes called him. He would delight 
them equally by his anecdotes of witchcraft, and the 
direful omens and portentous sights and sounds in the 2 o 
air, which prevailed in the earlier times of Connecticut; 
and would frighten them wofully with speculations upon 
comets and shooting stars; and with the alarming fact 
that the world did absolutely turn round and that they 
were half the time topsy-turvy! 25 

But if there was a pleasure in all this, while snugly 
cuddling in the chimney corner of a chamber that was all 
of a ruddy glow from the crackling wood fire, and where, 
of course, no spectre dared to show its face, it was dearly 
purchased by the terror of his subsequent walk homewards. 3Q 
What fearful shapes and shadows beset his path, amidst the 
dim and ghastly glare of a snowy night! With what 


230 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 

wistful look did he eye every trembling ray of light stream¬ 
ing across the waste fields from some distant window! 
How often was he appalled by some shrub covered with 
snow, which like a sheeted spectre beset his very path! 
5 How often did he shrink with curdling awe at the sound 
of his own steps on the frosty crust beneath his feet! and 
dread to look over his shoulder, lest he should behold 
some uncouth being tramping close behind him! and how 
often was he thrown into complete dismay by some rush- 
ioing blast, howling among the trees, in the idea that it 
was the galloping Hessian on one of his nightly scourings! 

— Washington Irving. 


NOTES 


A LEAF IN THE STORM 

This extract is taken from a story by the same title. 
The chief characters are the peasant Bernadou, his wife 
Margot, and his old grandmother Reine Allix. The 
scene is laid during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. 
The great defeat of the French at Sedan, and the sur¬ 
render of Paris from starvation after a long siege brought 
the war to an end. The victorious Prussians took from 
France an indemnity of five billion francs ($1,000,000,000), 
and two of their richest provinces, Alsace and Lorraine. 

■N 

What words in the first sentence show that it is not the 
beginning of the story? Note the repeated use of an¬ 
tithesis (contrast) in the first paragraph. By what de¬ 
tails do you learn the state of the country? How did 
the war affect even the people remote from the battle¬ 
fields? How are the terror and suffering of the people 
indicated? Notice the effectiveness of the author’s use 
of details. Have you read any prose or poetry in which 
war is made to seem glorious? How does it seem here? 
Does the author make the scene of the arrival of the 
Prussians vivid? How is this done? Note the dramatic 
contrast between the arrival of the Prussians and the 
actions of the peasants. How has the author drawn the 

231 


232 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


character of Bernadou? By what details does the author 
give special poignancy to the pathos of her account? 
What is the significance of the title “ A Leaf in the 
Storm ”? 

CATS 

St. Francis was born in 1182 in the little town of Assissi, 
Italy. He came of a rich and noble family, and was 
taken into business partnership with his father, a wealthy 
merchant, at the age of fourteen. In his twenty-fourth 
year he suddenly abandoned his friends and work, and 
took up a life of penance and utter poverty. His austeri¬ 
ties, his sincerity, and his simple eloquence attracted 
much attention, and he soon had many followers. Later 
on he founded the Franciscan Order of monks, and did 
much missionary work by traveling in the East. He 
died at Assissi in 1226. 

7 : 19. Garth: an inclosure, a yard. 

8: 28. Hysterical precision. What does this mean? 

8:29. Cutting each other dead. Have you ever 
thought of the quaint absurdity of this figurative expres¬ 
sion? 

9 : 5. Arno: the river that flows through Florence. 

9 : 8. St. Francis.not the wise man, etc. Why not? 

9:22. Jean Jacques Rousseau: a French philosophical 
writer of the last part of the eighteenth century. His chief 
works are “ Emile,” “ Social Contract,” “ Confessions.” 

11: 10. Ca donne furieusement a penser : “ That makes 
one think very hard.” 

12:2. Cates: viands; things to eat. Why “slip¬ 
pery”? Nameless. What are they called in the third 
sentence from the end of the paragraph? 


NOTES 


233 


What reference in the first sentence to the sports in the 
arena of Rome? 

Notice how many times the author refers to the num¬ 
ber of cats. Why? 

Is the description of the scene objective or subjective ? 
Cf. “A Leaf in the Storm.” 

Notice the suggestiveness of the adjectives as in the refer¬ 
ence to “ Discrete brown doors ” on page 7. 

How do these cats differ from cats as you know them? 
What qualities have they that you recognize? Where 
does the author indicate that he is about to begin a story? 
Does the author win your sympathy for the eats? How? 
In what does the humor of the story lie? What is the 
climax of the story? What do you think of the priest 
and his comment? Does the whole sketch interest you 
because it describes a strange scene, or because it raises 
the question of the humanity of keeping alive one hundred 
and three cats? 

AN ADVENTURE IN THE DESERT 

13: 2. Provencal. Provence was an ancient govern¬ 
ment of southeastern France. It became part of the 
crown lands in 1481 under Louis XI. The term Provencals 
is used loosely to include dwellers in the south of France. 

13 : 8. Maugrabins: a savage tribe of northern Africa. 

13 : 18. Scimitar: a short Turkish sword, carbine : a 
short light rifle. 

13:21. Dirk: a dagger. 

13 : 26. Bivouac: an encampment without tents. 

14 : 17. Capriciously fashioned. Explain this term. 

16: 15. Royal lair. Why royal? 

16: 23. Lissome: supple, nimble. 


234 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 

16: 26. Species felis. Latin “ felis,” a cat. 

17 : 5. Jaundiced. Explain this term. 

18: 14. Vertebrae: the bones of the spinal column. 

19 : 11. Why does the author call the tiger the sultana 
of the desert ? 

19 : 21. For the nonce : for the present. 

19: 28. An eye of commercial distrust. Explain this 
term. 

20: 12. Face of a woman. The creature, part tiger 
and part woman, suggests what famous monument? 

20:14. Nero: a Roman Emperor notorious for his 
cruelty. 

21:8. Damascus sword: A Damascus blade was 
famed for its excellence. 

Note the detailed description. Does it add to the 
reality of the scene? Does the author succeed in making 
the panther appeal to our sympathy? Does the story 
seem plausible or merely fantastic? Where do you find 
surprises in the story that add to its interest? 

FOR THOSE WHO LOVE MUSIC 

25: 4. Miserere of the Trovatore. Trovatore is an 
opera by Verdi. 

25: 7. Addio Signor: “ Good-by, Sir.” 

25: 13. A melancholy barrel organ. What does the 
author mean by this? 

25: 14. Allegretto: lively, a musical term to denote 
the tempo of a composition. 

25: 15. Tempo di Marcia : marching time. 

26: 2. Jar din des Plantes: the botanical garden. 

26: 10. Monte Cassino: a monastery on a hill near 
Oassino, Italy, about forty-five miles from Naples. 


NOTES 


235 


26: 18. Impresario: the conductor of an opera or a 
concert. 

26: 29. Round her tribune: a curious use of this 
word, which means a pulpit or bench from which speeches 
were made. 

26 : 31. Garibaldi: a jacket which took its name from 
its likeness in shape to the red shirt worn by the Italian 
patriot Garibaldi. 

27: 6. Hdtel de L’Avenir: literally, “ Hotel of the 
Future.” 

27: 20. The problematical existences. Explain this 
expression. 

27: 23. Abruzzi cloak. Abruzzi is a division of west¬ 
ern Italy including three provinces. , 

28: 11. Place de Notre Dame. The square in front 
of Notre Dame Cathedral. 

29 : 6. Seine. Paris is on the River Seine. “ buon 
giorno ” : “ Good day.” 

29 : 11. Place Maubert: Boulevard St. Germain : streets 
in Paris. 

29: 17. Street Arabs. What is meant by this term? 

29: 27. Hopital de la Pitie: literally, “ Hospital of 
Pity.” 

30:1. Brazier: a pan for burning coals. Tuscan. 
Tuscany is one of the divisions of northern Italy. 

31: 25. La febbre : the fever. 

32 : 24. Errant: wandering. 

What interested the author in the old organ-grinder? 
What was the music like? Explain the title of the story. 
By what incidents does the author show the unselfish 
devotion of the old musician for his pet? Was his pet 
winning or lovable? Why did the old man care so much 
for it? Is the picture of the old man dignified or sordid? 


236 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


Why? Point out instances of dramatic contrast. Are 
the descriptions in the story simple or elaborate? 


OUT OF DOORS 

33: 1. Saint Guido was a fanciful name given to the 
little boy because his shock of golden curls looked like 
the nimbus around a saint’s head. 

34: 16. Corn. In England corn means wheat, or 
sometimes rye or barley or oats. What we call corn the 
English call maize. 

35:11. Swifts: swallows. 

36 : 6. Copse: a wood of small trees. 

Where do you imagine this scene is laid? What things 
in the text suggest this ? Do you get a single picture, or a 
rapid succession of pictures? Which is the author really 
giving you: nature as it is, or as it seems to the boy? 
Has any of it ever seemed so to you? Note the appeal 
to sight, hearing, and touch; note the use of color. Does 
the author show a love for, and knowledge of, nature? 
Select the passages in which the sympathy between the 
boy and all nature is dwelt on. 

THE TABOO 

The author, Herman Melville, was born in New York 
in 1819. In his youth he ran away from home and 
became a sailor on a whaling vessel. Escaping from the 
cruel tyranny of the captain, he reached the Marquesas 
Islands, where he had strange adventures as the captive 
of a tribe of cannibals in the Typee Valley. He lived 
here many months, and finally returned home in an 
Australian ship. 


NOTES 


237 


38 : 2. Polynesian Islands : in the Pacific, just east of 
Australia. 

38 : 19. Talismanic: having the properties of a charm. 

39 : 3. Contravened : come into conflict with. 

39: 11. Tappa: a kind of cloth made from the inner 
bark of the paper mulberry. 

39 : 24. Sabine atrocity : referring to the carrying off 
of the Sabine women by the Romans in the legendary 
history of early Rome. 

Many writers on the customs of primitive people sup¬ 
pose the taboo to be the earliest form of law. It is com¬ 
monly imposed by the king or the high priest of the tribe. 
Does the “ taboo ” here seem to you to be a matter of 
law or religion? Have we any “ taboos ” in our social 
system? What do we mean when we say of an act or a 
thing that it is “taboo,” or “tabooed”? Does cere¬ 
moniousness increase or decrease with civilization? 

SCHOOL DAYS AT THE CONVENT 

George Sand is a nom de plume. The author’s real 
name is Armandine Lucile Aurore Dupin. She was a 
famous French novelist and playwright — born 1804, 
died 1876. 

41: 2. Refectory : the dining hall. 

41: 11. Cloister: the covered arched passage on the 
side of a court. 

42 : 16. Vincennes: a town about two miles from Paris. 

42:17. Catacombs: subterranean passages. 

42: 18. Baths of Julian: a Roman emperor of the 
fourth century. 

42: 32. Lay sisters: the nuns who are not in holy 
orders. 


238 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


43 : 8. Castle of the Pyrenees. Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels 
were the first “ mystery and horror ” tales to become 
popular. 

45: 17. Escapade: prank. 

46 : 9. Mansard : having two slopes. 

49 : 13. Audaces fortuna juvat: “ Fortune favors the 
brave.” 

49:14. Deschartres: the tutor of George Sand’s 
father. 

Could you tell from the context where the scene is laid ? 
What kind of child do you imagine the writer was? Has 
the narrative the stamp of a real experience? Do you 
know any books similar to what you may imagine the 
“ Castle of the Pyrenees ” to be? 

IN BRITTANY 

50: 9. Breaking horses: training horses to work, an 
expression familiar to every country child. 

50 : 19. Anne of Bretaigne : the daughter of Francis II, 
duke of Brittany ; born at Nantes, 1476. 

50: 20. Fosse : a moat; a ditch. 

51: 12. Porcine : relating to swine ; hoglike. 

53 : 6. Sabots: wooden shoes. 

63:15. Voila Messieurs: “ There you are, gentle¬ 
men.” 

53: 30. Pannier. Panniers are a pair of baskets slung 
across the back of a horse or donkey. 

54: 27. Nantes: a town near the mouth of the Loire 
River. 

What traits does the author find most admirable in the 
women of Brittany? Show how these traits are brought 
out by contrast with the behavior of the men. Do 


NOTES 


239 


women in this country do the same kinds of work as the 
European peasant women? What other things might 
the descriptions have included if the author had not been 
so much interested in the people? What parts of the 
sketch are humorous? Point out passages that are effec¬ 
tive through contrast. Show how the women of Brittany 
are made to seem womanly and dignified in spite of the 
amusement they furnish us. 

THE ADIRONDACKS 

57 : 7. Musquash : muskrat. 

What does this power of minute observation tell you 
.about the writer? What other qualities of the naturalist 
does Burroughs show in this account? What things in 
nature seem most to attract his attention ?' Do you know 
what science now says about “ the beginning of things ” 
being “ associated with water”? What do you imagine 
were the “ adventures with the pine knots ” that Bur¬ 
roughs speaks of? 

AN ASCENT OF KILAUEA 

59 : 1. Kilauea: a volcano on the island of Hawaii. 

60: 20. Leeward: away from the wind. 

Note the purely objective description. What colors 
predominate? Point out the similes in use. Do they 
heighten the picture ? Does the author succeed in giving 
a clear picture of the volcano? 

THE FETISH 

63: 10. Fetish (also spelt “ fetich ”): a material 
object, venerated by certain African tribes; a sort of 


240 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 

idol, which is sometimes punished by its owner in dis¬ 
appointment or anger. 

63: 13. Vicarious: suffered or performed in place of 
another. 

63: 17. Jael: referring to the story of how Jael drove 
the nail into the forehead of Sisera. Judges IV : 17 to 22. 

What traits of character does Maggie show? Do 
children think of their dolls as alive? Or as representing 
people they know? Did you ever have the impulse to 
“ take your spite out ” on something, animate or in¬ 
animate? Did you feel any better for relieving your 
feelings so? There is an interesting account of a savage 
beating his idol in Melville’s “Typee.” 

SALMON FISHING IN IRELAND 

66: 1. Peat-bog. Peat is a kind of turf that is used 
for fuel. 

65 : 13. Peal: a small salmon. 

66: 12. Claret hackle. A hackle is an artificial fly 
made of feathers. 

66: 12. Mallard wing. A mallard is the drake of the 
wild duck. The artificial fly imitates its wing. 

68 : 9. Anathema: a curse. 

70: 10. Gaff: a large hook fixed on the end of a 
pole or handle. 

Is the first part of the narrative a typical story of 
“fisherman’s luck”? Show .how the story illustrates 
that a real lover of fishing is enthusiastic over every de¬ 
tail of his experience. Is the story technical at the 
expense of the reader’s interest? How does the element 
of suspense add to the interest? Is the account more 
interesting by being told in the first person? Why? 


NOTES 


241 


ACROSS RUNNING WATER 

71: 8. Seamews : gulls. 

71: 9. Solanders: a kind of wild geese. 

71: 10. Guillemots: birds similar to the auks. 

71: 11. Terns: a species of birds allied to the gulls. 

73 : 1. Burn: a small stream. 

73: 6. Poor woman: a friendly term of address in 
Ireland. 

74: 23. Wrack: coarse seaweed. 

Notice how the author describes the wildness of nature 
so as to make it seem in sympathy with the strangeness 
of the human story. Pick out words and passages that 
convey this as: “screaming seamews,” “screeched,” 
“ dishevelled,” “ black flurries,” etc. Have you ever 
read any stories or fairy tales that tell about changelings? 
Among what kind of people would a story like this be 
believed? Read Yeats, “The Land of Hearts’ Desire” 
and compare with this story. Is the story too fantastic 
to gain the reader’s sympathy? 

THE PINE-TREE SHILLINGS 

75 : 18. Quintals: hundredweights. 

75:24. Shillings: Sixpences, and three-pences. 

What country did use and still uses this system? 

76: 5. Tankards: large drinking vessels. 

76: 10. Bullion : uncoined gold or silver in the mass. 

76: 11. Buccaneers: pirates. 

77: 21. Smallclothes : knee breeches. 

77: 32. Governor Endicott: governor of the Massa¬ 
chusetts colony from 1647 to 1665. 

Notice the kindly quality of the humor. Do you know 

R 


242 SHORT STORIES AND' SELECTIONS 

any other stories written in this vein? Does the author 
seem to think that Miss Betsey’s charms or her money 
were her attraction? 

THE WHITE TRAIL 

81: 30. Ptarmigan: a species of grouse that is brown 
in summer but turns white, or nearly white, in winter. 

82 : 13. Phantasmagoria : illusive images. 

82 : 13. Ghosts about ASneas: referring to the descent 
of iEneas into Hades as told in Virgil’s “^Eneid.” 

What is the effect of the repeated use of “ always ” in 
the first paragraph? Cite the passages that help most 
in giving you a clear picture of the scene. What effect 
is produced by the absence of color in the description? 
Why does the author use almost entirely the short sen¬ 
tences? What possibilities of tragedy are hinted at in 
the narrative? How is the sense of silence and isolation 
conveyed ? 

A DISSERTATION ON ROAST PIG 

83 : 6. Confucius: a celebrated Chinese philosopher, 
born about 550 b.c. 

83 : 14. Mast-acorns : nuts. 

83:17. Younkers: youngsters. 

83:24. China pigs. What adjective would we use 
now? 

84: 24. Crackling: the brown crisp rind of roasted 
pork. 

86:21. Assize town: the place where the court sits 
to conduct trials. 

87: 16. Locke: John Locke, a celebrated English 
philosopher of the seventeenth century. 

In this essay where does the humor lie? Is it in the 


NOTES 


243 


absurdity of the story told? In the exaggerations? 
What stories, of those you have studied, does this most 
resemble? Why? Notice how bare the story is of any 
description except that which is essential to the theme. 
What is the effect of this ? Does the author describe the 
taste of roast pig sympathetically ? Does any article of food 
arouse your enthusiasm? If so, try writing an essay on it. 
Why does the author introduce such incongruous terms 
as “ foreman of the jury,” “ jury box,” “ insurance 
offices ”? 

THE LAST CLASS 

88: 9. Prussians going through their drill. The time 
of the story is laid at the end of the Franco-Prussian War. 

88 : 15. Conscription : compulsory enrollment for mili¬ 
tary service. 

90: 16. Saar: a river just beyond the northeast border 
line of the province of Lorraine. 

92 : 15. Cockchafers: a species of beetle. 

93: 15. Angelus: the angelus bell, which is rung at 
morning, noon, and night. 

93 : 26. Vive la France : “ Long live France.” 

Compare this story with “ A Leaf in the Storm.” 

What do such stories make you think of “ the glory of 
conquest ”? Why was the decree made that this was to 
be “ the last class in French ” ? Does the author make this 
story a personal tragedy or the tragedy of France ? Where 
is the climax of the story? Is it effective? What kind of 
spirit does it show ? Does that spirit live in France to-day ? 

AN ARAB FISHERMAN 

95 : 2 . Burnous : a cloak-like garment with a hood, w r orn 
by the Arabs. 


244 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


95:7. Mauresque : Moorish (girl). 

97:11. Bonjour: “ good day.” 

97: 13. Spahis: Algerian cavalrymen serving in the 
French army. 

Note the use of color. What things in the scene should 
you like to see for yourself? Is the humor of the story 
one of situation or character? Was the old Arab vain 
or only stupid? Is his attitude toward the author a 
typically Eastern one? Do you know Kipling’s ballad, 
“ The East and the West ”? 

THE ARCHERY CONTEST 

100 : 2. Lists: fields of combat. 

100: 12. Yeomanry : the yeomen in England were the 
freeholders, the class next in order to the gentry. 

100: 21. Locksley: a name for Robin Hood who was 
supposed to have been born in Locksley, Nottingham¬ 
shire, about 1160. 

100 : 21. Prince John was the brother of King Richard, 
and ruled in England during the time that Richard was 
absent on the Crusades. 

100: 23. Baldric: a broad belt worn over one shoul¬ 
der and under the opposite arm. Drew a long bow at 
Hastings. The archers of that time used what were 
called “ long bows.” The battle of Hastings was fought 
in 1066, when William of Normandy defeated the Eng¬ 
lish. 

103: 18. King Arthur’s round table. This was the 
famous table, made by the magician Merlin, which was 
given to King Arthur as a wedding gift by the father of 
Guinevere. It could seat 150 knights. 

104:20. Twenty nobles. A noble was an old coin 
worth about one dollar and sixty cents. 


NOTES 


245 


104 : 28. King Richard : Richard Coeur de Lion. He 
was born about 1157 and became king of England in 1189. 
He reigned until his death in 1199. whittle: a pocket or 
sheath knife. 

State some qualities of Locksley and Prince John that 
are brought out in the narrative. What is the effect of 
Hubert’s repetition of the words fi my grandsire drew a 
long bow,” etc.? Can you get any hint of the social 
conditions at the time of the story? Is there anything 
in the narrative to suggest the identity of Locksley? Did 
Robin Hood ever take service with King Richard? Why 
did Locksley refuse the money? 

BABY SYLVESTER 

106: 3. Serape : a blanket or. shawl commonly worn 
by the Mexicans. 

107: 2. Sylvester: the author’s friend in whose cabin 
he was staying at the time of the story. 

107: 3. Inextricably : in a hopelessly involved manner. 

107 : 7. Deprecatingly : regretfully, entreatingly. 

107: 25. Leda: the maiden who was wooed by Jupiter 
in the form of a swan. 

108 : 7. Pomposo : the writer’s horse. 

Why had the miners chosen the name “ Baby Sylvester ” 
for the bear cub? Read the story and explain the author’s 
surprise at the appearance of the “ Baby.” Does the 
author describe the bear sympathetically and lovingly or 
as a naturalist? Illustrate. What qualities had the cub 
that endeared it to the author? Which of the senses 
predominates in the description? Illustrate. Would 
you consider “ Baby Sylvester ” capable of training? 
Why? Read the entire story and tell what becomes of 
the “ Baby.” 


246 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


ADDRESS AT GETTYSBURG 
SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS . 

Does the style and sentiment expressed remind you 
of an older literature? Illustrate. Do Lincoln’s state¬ 
ments about war apply to the present great European 
conflict? Illustrate. Point out the effectiveness of 
repetition. Note the places where the prose becomes 
almost poetical. Is the appeal in the speeches to reason 
or to feeling? Do you feel the personality of Lincoln in 
these speeches? The Gettysburg speech is commonly 
considered one of the greatest speeches ever made. Can 
you mention any other famous speeches that are regarded 
as fine literature ? 

AN APPRECIATION OF LINCOLN 

113: 15. Frederick Douglass: a noted orator and 
journalist. He was born (a slave) in 1817 and died in 
1895. 

113: 23. La Rochefoucauld: Francois La Rochefou¬ 
cauld was a French writer and moralist of the seventeenth 
century. 

Do you know any facts of Lincoln’s life that would 
support some of these statements? What has come to be 
the universally accepted estimate of Lincoln? What 
qualities of Lincoln seem most to impress the writer? 
Can you point to anything in Lincoln’s addresses that 
proves the correctness of the popular judgment of him? 
Point out instances of contrast in this selection. Do 
you know anything about the “Lincoln Mythology” 
that has grown up since the war? 


NOTES 


247 


THE ELEPHANTS THAT STRUCK 

116 : 15. Paddy : unhusked rice. 

What part do you imagine the writer had in the 
expedition he describes? How would the natives have 
solved the problem ? Have you ever heard other 
stories of elephants that seem to show the power of 
reasoning? 

THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP 

119 : 1. Sepulture : burial. 

119 : 10. It was remarkable — Roaring Camp. What 

does this mean? 

119 : 24. Jinny : the she-ass that had been procured 
as a nurse. 

120: 19. Apostrophizing: using a special form of 
personal address. 

120 : 23. Coyote : also called prairie wolf. 

121: 25. Cuticle : outer skin. 

121:27. Certain prudential reasons. What were 
they? 

122 : 9. Interdicted : forbidden. 

123: 6. Las Mariposas: the Mariposa lilies; also 
called butterfly lilies. 

123: 21. Corral: an inclosure for animals. 

123 : 22. Tessellated : checkered. 

124 : 20. Pre-empted: claimed by special privilege of 
purchase. 

Where is the scene of the story laid? What is the prob¬ 
able time? It was Bret Harte’s peculiar power to find 
tenderness and fineness of feeling among rough men. 
Where do you see these things in this story? Does 


248 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


the story show “ poetic insight ” ? Cf. Hawthorne’s 
definition. 1 Why did the miners insist on “ frills ” for 
Tommy? Does the change wrought in Roaring Camp 
seem to you to be reasonable ? What was the real 
“ luck ” that Tommy brought to Roaring Camp? 

THE STORY OF MUHAMMAD DIN 

127 : 13. Budmash : a disreputable fellow. 

127 : 18. Sahib : a respectful title given to Europeans 
by the natives of India. 

128 : 8. Compound : an inclosure containing a house 
and outbuildings. 

Point out the characteristics of Muhammad Din that 
are common to all childhood, and those that are more 
especially Oriental. Why do you think Muhammad 
Din always played alone? Note the simple direct way of 
telling the story. What other stories have been told in 
this way? Would you have been able to recognize 
Muhammad Din from the author’s description? Would 
the destruction of the sand-house be a tragedy to most 
Western children? Why was it to Muhammad Din? 
Notice the simple pathos of the ending. Is it made more 
poignant by being unexpected ? 


A CHILD 

131: 1. Kensington Gardens: in southwest London. 
134: 10. Exhaustless cruse. See I Kings XVII: 8-16. 

1 “ What is called poetic insight is the gift of discerning, in this 
sphere of strangely mingled elements, the beauty and majesty 
that are compelled to assume a garb so sordid.” — House of the 
Seven Gables, Chap. II. 


NOTES 


249 


135: 10. Marionette : a puppet moved by strings. 

Why could the child enjoy only “ peppermints and 
kippered herring ”? Why does the author call the child 
the “ Future of the Race ”? Is the term used seriously 
or ironically? What plea does the author make for all 
childhood? Does the portrait of the child seem real or 
exaggerated? Does the author place the blame for such 
conditions as made this child an unhappy weakling? 
Compare this portrait with that of Muhammad Din. 

TOO DEAR FOR THE WHISTLE 

This extract was taken from a letter which Franklin 
wrote from Passy in 1779 to Madame Brillon. 

The phrase, “ paying too dear for his whistle,” has be¬ 
come proverbial. What does it mean? What famous 
book of maxims was written by Franklin? Can you 
quote any of the sayings in it? Do you know anything 
of Franklin’s life that showed whether he lived up to the 
mo^al he sets forth in this story? 

A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 

138:1. Francois Villon: born 1431, died 1484. 
Stevenson characterizes him as “ poet, student, and 
housebreaker.” 

138: 8. Phantasmal: ghostly. 

139 : 7. Seigneur: lord. 

139 : 15. Folios: large books. 

139: 26. With the stealth and passion of a cat. Does 
this give you any clue to Villon’s character? 

139:31. Martial: warlike. 

140:21. Viands: food. 

140 : 25. White : a small coin. 


250 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 

140:31. Bailly: bailiff. 

141: 4. Lais: . . . virilais. Chansons . . . roundels: 

different types of versification. 

141: 15. Clerk: the term formerly applied to a man 
of letters. 

141: 29. Requisitions : demands, generally of money 
and supplies, made by invaders upon the people of the 
invaded country. 

142 : 14. Circumspect: wary. 

What hints does the sketch give you of the period in 
which the story is laid? What characteristics of Villon 
are brought out? Is there any suggestion of the poet in 
his remarks? What is the real difference between the 
two men? Does Villon make out a good case? Is his 
description of war a- fair one ? Why did Villon not steal 
the goblets? 

A BAD FIVE MINUTES IN THE ALPS 

What do you imagine has preceded this selection? 
What things are contrasted in the account? Do you 
think that philosophizing helped or hindered the climber? 
Do you know anything about the difficulties of Alpine 
climbing from other accounts you have read? Compare 
the style of this selection with “ The Luck of Roaring 
Camp ” and “ A Leaf in the Storm.” 

THE GOLD TRAIL 

151: 7. Pay dirt: dirt that has gold enough in it to 
pay for working it. 

Where do you imagine this scene is laid? Why was 
the miner willing to admit the newcomers? What suc¬ 
cess do you think they had? Note the simplicity of the 


NOTES 


251 


style and the diction. Can you tell anything about the 
first rush of gold seekers to California? Read the novel, 
“ Gold,” from which this selection is taken. You will 
find it very interesting. 

TWENTY YEARS OF ARCTIC STRUGGLE 

153 : 24. Open leads: open ways in an ice-field. 

156: 15. Britannia Island: one of the most northern 
islands of the Arctic Ocean. 

156 : 24. Musk-oxen : the musk-ox has long shaggy 
hair and somewhat resembles a buffalo. 

157: 14. Roosevelt: Peary’s ship. 

How does the heroism shown in this account of Peary’s 
struggle compare with military courage? What qualities 
of the true explorer does Peary show? What picture 
do you get of the country in which the travelers jour¬ 
neyed? What do you know of Peary’s later expedition? 
Do you think the descriptions would be so purely objec¬ 
tive if they were written by the explorer himself? Would 
the account seem more real or more interesting if it had 
been told in the first person? 

BEECHER’S SPEECH IN MANCHESTER 

159:4. Abolitionism: The policy of those who worked 
for the abolition of slavery before the Civil War. 

160:30. Bull of Bashan: Psalm XXII, 12-13 

Henry Ward Beecher was born in 1813 and died in 1887. 
He was a noted lecturer, reformer, author, and clergyman. 
He was also among the most prominent of anti-slavery 
orators, and delivered many addresses in England on sub¬ 
jects relating to the Civil War. 

Why do you suppose Mr. Beecher was introduced as 


252 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


Henry Ward Beecher Stowe? Name some characteristics 
of Mr. Beecher as revealed in this selection. What quali¬ 
ties would you attribute to an English audience, judging 
from this account? Do you know anything about the 
custom of “ heckling ” in England? How much was the 
success of the speech due to Mr. Beecher’s sense of humor? 
Do you imagine that Mr. Beecher was successful in his 
addresses to the English people? Why? 

A GREEN DONKEY DRIVER 

163 : 1. Monastier: a little village in southern France. 

163: 15. Deputation: a group of persons sent to act 
in behalf of others. 

163 : 24. Fallacious: misleading, deceptive. 

164 : 16. Beaujolais: a red wine made in southeastern 
France. 

164 : 24. Contumelious : rude and abusive. 

165 : 16. Minuet: a slow, stately dance. 

166: 2. Alais: a town in southeastern France not far 
from the Rhone River. 

166 : 20. Et vous marchez comme ga ! “ and you are 
moving like that! ” 

166: 31. Deus ex machina: “the god out of the ma¬ 
chine ”; some supernatural intervention. 

167: 10. Mellifluously: sweetly. Find this allusion 
in “ Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Act I, Scene 2. 

167 : 29. Slew : twist. 

168: 1. Ussel: a town about one hundred miles north¬ 
west of Alais. 

168: 1. Hypothec: literally, the property of a tenant 
held by a landlord as security for rent. Here, of course, 
the property insufficiently secured on the donkey. 


NOTES 


253 


168: 14. Acolytes: assistants of the priest during 

mass. 

Would you judge that this was the writer’s first ex¬ 
perience in camping? Why? What is added to the 
story by attributing human qualities to Modestine? 
How did she seem to'be always putting him in the wrong? 
Do people ever work such tricks? What characteristics 
of the author are shown in this sketcli? Is the humor of 
the story one of situation merely? What other selections 
are similar to this in the style of writing? in the hipnor? 

% 

A NIGHT IN THE PINES 

What use does the author make of contrast? What 
things does he notice? Did you ever sleep at night out of 
doors? If so, was the night empty of impressions or 
did you hear and see things? What characteristic things 
has Stevenson chosen to give you in the picture of camping 
out at night? What things do you suppose Stevenson 
most enjoyed in his life out of doors? 

LIFE IN OLD NEW YORK 

173 : 14. Inundation : a flood. 

173: 16. Amphibious: able to live in water and on 
land. 

174: 1. Entering devoutly, etc. What Oriental custom 
is the author alluding to? 

176 : 8 . Divertisements: diversions, amusements. 

176:12. Yay, Mynheer: “ yes, sir.” Yay, Vrow: “yes, 
madam.” 

176: 18. Tobit. The Book of Tobit is part of the 
Apocrypha. 


254 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


176: 19. Haman is the king’s counselor in the Book of 
Esther. 

176: 21. Harlequin: the clown in early Italian and 
later French comedy. 

Are there any parts of the country where the traditions 
of the “ best parlor ” are still kept? Does the early life 
in New York appear to you attractive or uninteresting? 
Does the description seem like ridicule ? The descendan ts 
of the old Dutch families resented Irving’s way of making 
fun of their ancestors. Point out passages which might 
justify^this complaint. Compare this sketch with “ A Pine 
Tree Shilling ” in the style of writing, method of descrip¬ 
tion, and humor. 

THE BAZAAR IN MOROCCO 

Pierre Loti is the nom-de-plume of a well-known French 
writer. His real name is Louis Marie Julien Viaud, and 
he is an officer in the French army. His work is par¬ 
ticularly celebrated for the vividness and brilliancy of 
his descriptions. He has described scenes in Africa, 
India, China, and on the ocean. One of his best books is 
“ An Iceland Fisherman.” 

177 : 2. Bournouses: cf. “ An Arab Fisherman.” 

177 : 21. Amulets: ornaments worn as a charm against 
evil. 

177 : 25. Arabesques : a kind of low-relief carving of 
man and animal figures fantastically interlaced. 

178: 8. The Moroccans ... in this country. What 
similar statement was made in “ An Arab Fisherman ”? 

179 : 8. Soudan : the region south of the Sahara Desert. 

179 : 8. Mussulmans : Mohammedans. 

179:17. Mequinez (Mekinez): a city not far from 
Fez. 



NOTES 


255 


179 : 24. Korans: the Koran is the sacred book of the 
Mohammedans. 

179 : 28. Trefoil: a shape similar to that of the clover 
leaf. 

Select some of the be^t examples of minute detail in 
the descriptions. Note the use of color, form, and smell. 
How has the author contrasted the civilizations of East 
and West? Notice how the rapid enumeration of objects 
gives the effect of passing through the bazaar. Why 
would a painter find it easy to paint a picture from these 
written descriptions? What things are sold in the bazaar 
that show the Eastern skill in handicraft? that show su¬ 
perstition? What contrasts between beauty and sordid¬ 
ness are made in the descriptions ? 

A BATTLE OF THE ANTS 

181: 8. Duellum . . . bellum: war. 

181: 11. Myrmidons: a fierce tribe that accompanied 
Achilles, their king, to the Trojan War. 

181: 16. Internecine : mutually destructive. 

182 : 6. Pertinacity : persistency, obstinacy. 

182: 14. Return with his shield or upon it. What is 
the allusion? See Brewer’s Reader's Handbook under 
“ Spartan Mother.” 

182 : 32. Assiduously : diligently, laboriously. 

183 : 19. H6tel des Invalides : an establishment founded 
in 1670 at Paris for disabled and infirm soldiers. It con¬ 
tains military trophies and paintings, and a remarkable 
collection of armor. 

What things in the account of the battle show that the 
writer is a trained observer? Does it add to the interest 
of the battle to attribute human qualities to the com- 


256 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


batants? Why? What touches of humor do you find in 
the description? Does the author show a sympathetic 
attitude toward war? Illustrate. What do you know 
of Thoreau’s life at Walden Pond? 


AN AFRICAN PET 

Paul du Chaillu was born in Paris in 1835. At the 
age of sixteen he made some exploratory tours around his 
father’s trading station in W'est Africa, and in 1855 he 
came to America, where he made his home. Later he 
undertook a botanic and zoologic exploration to Africa 
which lasted for four years. 

184:3. Nshiego mbouve : a species of ape. 

186: 14. Plantain : a fruit which closely resembles the 
banana. 

187:11. Predatory: plundering. 

What qualities of “ Tommy ” endeared him to his 
captors? Do you know whether the monkey family is 
capable of the training which the author hoped to give to 
his pet? Does the author succeed in making you like 
or dislike “Tommy”? What human qualities does 
“ Tommy ” show? Does this story seem to justify a 
belief in the origin of species? Could you infer anything 
about the writer’s character from this sketch? 

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE 

190: 1. Lama: a priest or monk of Thibet and Mon¬ 
golia who professes Lamaisin, a kind of Buddhism. 

191: 2. Parody : a burlesque or mimicking of some¬ 
thing, usually written. 

191: 10. Provender : food, provisions. 

191: 18. Bovine rumination : chewing a cud. 




NOTES 


257 


192 : 14. Ursine : pertaining to a bear. 

193 : 9 . Demolished : destroyed. 

Do the incidents related seem real or exaggerated ? 
Has the author used the element of surprise effectively? 
Illustrate. Would you judge that the writer was a 
scientist? Why? 

BUCK’S TRIAL OF STRENGTH 

194 : 6. Superfluous : unnecessary. 

194: 18. Dynasty : race or succession of kings. 

195: 13. As you love me, Buck. Compare this in¬ 
cident with the words whispered to his horse by the rider 
in Browning’s “ Ghent to Aix.” 

195 : 16. Conjuration : an invoking of supernatural aid. 

195 : 32. Maneuver: dexterous movement. 

Notice the simple direct style of writing. Why does 
the writer dwell on the physical fitness of Buck? Does 
the understanding between Buck and his master seem un¬ 
usual? What glimpses of the character of the miners 
does the story give you? Show how the element of 
suspense adds to the dramatic force of the story. What 
is the most interesting point in the narrative? 

ON THE SOLANDER WHALING GROUND 

198: 4. Preservation Inlet . . . Solander (island) . . . 
Foveaux (strait) . . . Stewart Island: places situated 
on or near the southern end of New Zealand. 

198 : 15. Kanaka : a native of the Sandwich Islands. 

198: 15. Crow’s nest: a perch near the top of the 

mast to shelter the man on the lookout. 

199 : 2. Fo’ksle : the forward part of the vessel, under 
the deck, where the sailors live. 

s 


258 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


199 : 3. Cuddy : small cabin. 

199 : 19. Hitches: a knot or noose that can be readily 
undone. 

199: 19. Sheet: the rope that regulates the angle of 
the sail. 

199 : 20. Hauled aft: hauled toward the stern of the ship. 

199 : 21. Cetacean : marine mammal. 

199 : 24. Coup de grace : the decisive, finishing stroke. 

200 : 8. Spiracle : the nostril of a whale. 

200: 12. Fucus gigantea: fucus is a kind of tough sea¬ 
weed. 

200 : 16. Fluke : one of the lobes of a whale’s tail. 

Show how the rapid action in the narrative makes it 
more dramatic. Why does the danger of the enterprise 
take so small a part in the narrative ? Can you character¬ 
ize this kind of description? 

AN EPISODE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

203 : 12. Vendor : seller. 

What things are contrasted in the story? Does the 
incident seem probable from what you know of the period ? 
Can you give any instances from history or fiction to show 
the attitude of the French aristocracy before the Revolu¬ 
tion? Do you know what happened to the Marquis in 
the “ Tale of Two Cities ”? Compare the condition of 
the people in this episode with those in a “ Leaf in the 
Storm.” 

THE COMMANDER OF THE FAITHFUL 

205:6. Deploying: unfolding, opening out. 

205: 8. Ogive : the arch which crosses a Gothic vault 
diagonally. 


NOTES 


259 


205: 13. Queen of Sheba: the queen who came to 
test the wisdom of Solomon. 

206: 21. Islam : the religion of the Mohammedans. 

206: 28. Caliph: the head of the Moslem state and 
defender of the faith. 

206: 28 . Cordova : a city of Spain. It is famous for 
its manufactures of leather and silverware. It contains 
many Moorish antiquities, and is celebrated for its cathe¬ 
dral — once a mosque. 

206: 29 . Bagdad: a city of Mesopotamia on the 
Tigris. It was formerly a city of great importance, 
and was a celebrated centre of Arabic learning and 
civilization. 

207: 8. Fez : a city in northern Morocco. 

207 : 24. Seraglio : a harem. 

207: 24. Onerous: burdensome. 

207:26. Mahomet (Mohammed): the founder of 
Mohammedanism. Born about 570 in Mecca(?) and 
died in 632. 

What things in the description would tell you that the 
scene was Oriental? What observations does the author 
make on the difference between East and West? As a 
spectator, what things would you find most interesting 
in the scene? Do you know why the author calls the 
Sultan’s palace impenetrable? Why does the author 
think that his interview with the Sultan may be useless? 

WALT WHITMAN 

208 : 2. Peninsula: that part of Virginia between the 
York and James rivers. 

208 : 4. Haversack: a bag in which a soldier carried 
his rations when on a march. 


260 


SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 


208 : 20. Comfits : sweetmeats. 

208: 25. To go an errand. What is the usual form? 

209 : 3. Benediction : blessing. 

209:11. Buoying: enlivening, cheering. 

209 : 24. Protuberant: bulging. 

210 : 12. Effuses : sheds, pours out. 

What picture do you get of Whitman in this account? 
What qualities of Whitman’s do you think most endeared 
him to the soldiers? Was Whitman’s carefulness about 
his personal appearance an evidence of egotism or altru¬ 
ism? Compare this estimate of Whitman with the 
“ Appreciation of Lincoln.” Are there any points of 
likeness ? 


HEROISM IN HOUSEKEEPING 

211: 18. Covenanter: one who defends the “ Solemn 
League and Covenant ” made to preserve the reformed 
religion in Scotland. 

211: 19. John Knox: a celebrated Scottish reformer, 
statesman, and writer. Born 1505, died in 1572. 

211:20. Craigenputtock: a town fifteen miles from 
Dumfries. Here much of Carlyle’s best work was done. 

212 : 10. Dumfries: a town in southern Scotland. 

212: 31. Benvenuto Cellini: a famous Italian sculp¬ 
tor and worker in gold and silver. Born in 1500( ?) died in 
1571. His autobiography is one of the most famous of 
Italian classics. The Perseus of Cellini stands in the 
Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence, and represents the helmeted 
hero holding up the severed head of Medusa. 

Does the opening paragraph give you any hint as to the 
source of this extract? What traits of character does the 
writer show? Can you show the evidence of Scotch 
Covenanter inheritance in the writer’s philosophy? Do 


NOTES 


261 


you imagine that the writer learned to make bread? 
Why? In what does the humor of the account lie? 

A YOUTHFUL ACTOR 

Would you imagine, from this extract, that the book 
from which it was taken would be interesting? Why? 
Notice the easy conversational way of telling the incident. 
What is gained by this ? Do you sympathize with Pepper 
or the author? Why? 

WAR 

216: 4. Dumdrudge : a fictitious name. 

Does Carlyle write from the usual military standpoint? 
Does war seem glorious or heroic from this point of view? 
Is ridicule an effective weapon against wrongs? Do you 
know of any abuses or wrongs that have been abolished 
by being shown up as ridiculous? Do you think it likely 
that the militaristic type of mind can have much sense of 
humor? 


COON HUNTING 

218: 1. Coon : raccoon, an animal allied to the bears 
but much smaller. Its body is gray, varied with black 
and white, and it has a long full tail banded with black 
and gray. 

218 : 5. Possum: opposum; this animal carries its 
young in a pouch, like the kangaroo. 

218: 14. Snake-fence (same as a worm-fence): a 
zigzag fence of rails which cross at the ends. 

What does the phrase “ the trails would grow cold ” 
mean? What sense would you find most active if you 
were on the coon-hunt? Does the author write as an 


.262 SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS 

enthusiastic hunter? What impresses you most in the 
account: the fun or the cruelty of hunting? Does the 
author succeed in giving you an idea of the excitement of 
coon-hunting? Would the account have any added 
interest if it were told in the first person? 

SIGHT IN SAVAGES 

221:1. Patagonia: the southern part of Argentine 
Republic. 

221:5. Gauchos: these people are of Spanish-Amer- 
ican descent. They are the native inhabitants of the 
pampas, and live chiefly by cattle-raising. 

221: 5. Pampas: vast plains in the southern part of 
South America, chiefly in the Argentine Republic. 

What things in nature do you think most interested the 
writer? Do you imagine that he would be a good out- 
of-doors companion? Why? Was the native in the 
story the sort of person whom you would expect to “ hold 
forth in an authoritative voice on a variety of subjects ”? 
Do you know what the general attitude of the savage and 
semi-civilized people is toward strange things? Note the 
rambling, conversational style in which this sketch is 
written. Compare it with Stevenson, Aldrich, and 
Edwards. Note the delightfully whimsical quality of 
the humor. Can you see any likeness in this to Lamb and 
Hawthorne ? 

THE VILLAGE SCHOOL-MASTER 

226: 3. Wight: a person. 

227 : 23. Supernumerary : superfluous, unnecessary. 

228 : 7. Erudition : learning, scholarship. 

228:21. Cotton Mather: an American clergyman, 


NOTES 


263 


author, and scholar. Born in 1663, died in 1728. He 
took an active part in the persecutions for witchcraft. 

229 : 3. Varlet: rascal. 

Is this style of writing similar to that of any other 
selections you have studied? Illustrate. Compare the 
kind of words used here with the simple diction in “ A 
Youthful Actor,” “ In Brittany,” “ The Gold Trail.” 
Does the author’s humor seem to you unkindly? What 
other selections have you studied in which this sort of 
humor is shown ? What courses of study do you imagine 
were given in Ichabod’s school? Does Ichabod seem a 
real character or only a caricature? 



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and Its Structure 


List price, go cents 


The author undertakes to set forth standards of appreciation of what is 
good in story-writing, illustrating by the practice of the masters as contrasted 
with amateurish failures. The author follows the scientific method of ana¬ 
lyzing works of recognized character, setting forth the distinguishing features 
of the modern short story, with many suggestions as to the details and the 
general principles of narrative construction. References are made to recent 
magazine literature as well as to a large number of recognized masterpieces. 



Mabie’s Stories : 


List price , $i.jo 


In a volume of convenient size and attractive appearance Mr. Mabie has 
brought together certain typical English and American short stories with 
introductions and a general introduction on the short story as a literary 
form. The authors represented in the collection are William Austin, 
Charles Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, J. Henry Short- 
house, Dr. John Browm, Robert Louis Stevenson, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, 
James Lane Allen, and Owen Wister. The collection has the advantage 
over some others of its kind of including a number of stories which, while 
they are of undoubted value, are comparatively little known. 


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 


Boston 


64-66 Fifth Avenue. New York 

Chicago San Francisco Atlanta 


Dallas 


Seattle 



Elements of Composition 

By Professor HENRY S. CANBY, Sheffield Scientific School, 
Yale University, and Mr. JOHN B. OPDYCKE, High 
School of Commerce, New York City 

Cloth, 12mo, 593 pages, $1.00 

The characteristic feature of this book is that the authors see 
the end from the beginning and never lose sight of it. That 
end is the ability on the part of the pupil to write clearly, correctly, 
and intelligently. From start to finish the appeal is to the intelli¬ 
gence rather than to mere form. The fact that before all else there 
must be something to say is emphasized in the first two chapters on 
Composition and Shaping the Material. The remainder of the book 
is simply a study of different ways and the best ways of saying what 
you want to say. 

The manner of approach is psychological. Part I contains 
(i) choice of subject; ( 2 ) arrangement of what you want to say; 

( 3 ) the use of the sentence as the expression of a single thought; 

( 4 ) the use of the paragraph; ( 5 ) the structure of the whole com¬ 
position; ( 6 ) the choice of the right word to express meaning 
nicely. Part II is a study of the recognized forms of composition, 
exposition, argument, description, narration, the story. In Part III, 
Aids to Composition, there are given for reference necessary details 
concerning spelling, punctuation, capitalization, grammatical forms, 
figures of speech, etc. Throughout the book there are abundant 
exercises and illustrative excerpts that serve to emphasize the point 
under consideration. The book is a unit, the plan works. 


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 



Tisdel’s Studies in Literature 


List price, go cents 

Consists of two parts. In Part I more than twenty different 
classics, most of them required for college entrance, are studied 
in groups under the following types: the epic; the romance and 
the novel; the drama; the essay ; the public address ; narrative 
and lyric poetry. There is a brief introductory discussion of 
each classic followed by suggestive questions and topics for 
essays and reports. 

Part II is a brief survey of the history of English Literature 
suitable for use in preparatory schools. 


Cairns’ American Literature for Secondary 
Schools 

List price , $1.00 

A brief treatment written expressly for the high school course. 
It deals fully with the big figures, biographically and critically, 
and shows also the place and influence of lesser writers in each 
period. The book is abundantly provided with carefully selected 
references and class helps. 


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York 

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